


A Safe Bet

by goseaward



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, M/M, Mpreg, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 08:31:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goseaward/pseuds/goseaward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: "Harry and Draco are partners on the Auror force--and have an on-again, off-again discreet sexual relationship. During one case, a stray curse hits Harry. When St Mungo's clears him to return to duty, he and Draco celebrate, but a few weeks later he's feeling ill. Imagine his surprise when he discovers the curse seems to have helped induce a rare male pregnancy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [harrydracompreg](http://harrydracompreg.livejournal.com/) fest 2012, originally posted [here](http://harrydracompreg.livejournal.com/193597.html). Prompt is from femmequixotic, who also did a wonderful beta job; any remaining errors are my own.

Sometimes, Harry wondered why he'd been partnered with Draco. Other times—like now, in a meeting of all the Investigation Department Aurors, when he could hardly see the chalkboard—he thought it was so the inevitable pictures didn't show him half a head shorter than his partner. All the other men, and most of the women, were taller than he was. The official reason was something about mending fences in the public eye, but Harry noted they hadn't partnered him with Pansy.

"We've had reports of cursed chairs here and here," Percy said, pointing to the map tacked up next to the chalkboard at the front of the room. Harry leaned around Ron's shoulder, trying to get a better view. "The teapots are more distributed—as far afield as Mayfield and Clerkenwell. And now we've found five of the blankets: Soho and Holborn in addition to the two from Diagon Alley and the one from Covent Garden. 

"It seems to be some sort of strangulation curse—the victims purchase household items, take them home, and choke when they touch the items again. As far as we know, all the victims have been rescued before death. St Mungo's and the research division are attempting to figure out what the curse is, but as of yet we are dealing with an unknown spell. We want to get out ahead of this—I'm sure I don't have to remind you of the Great Wool Scare of '02." A ripple of laughter moved through the room. "Smith, Redfern, Prewett, Khan, I want you looking for the dealers. Parkinson, tell Danielfield to be on time to meetings; you get to liaise with Muggle shipping authorities." Through a gap between Nero Smith and Rhonwen Redfern's heads, Harry could see Pansy wrinkling her nose. "Weasley, Fawcett, Weasley, Angel, victim interviews. Potter, Malfoy, you're on distribution channels. Curse neutralisation party tomorrow at half three. See you there." Percy stepped away from the map, dismissal clear.

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry. "He always puts me and Ginny on the same task," he said as they walked out. "Aren't you supposed to separate siblings in combat?"

"I think he just wants to avoid having to use your first names," Harry said. 

"He says our partners' names," Ron said. 

Harry smiled. "And you'd never switch places just to annoy him?"

"That's what he gets for joining our department."

"Well, victim interviews—at least you get to get out of this building."

"Yeah, to talk to little old ladies," Ron said. 

"Fresh air," Harry said. "Open skies."

"You mean smog and skyscrapers?" Ron grinned. "This is what happens when you work well with people who like to sort through giant stacks of parchment."

"I know." They'd reached the door to Harry's office; Draco was already inside, rifling through a pile of folders with the Ministry stamp on the front. "Let us know what you find," Harry said to Ron. 

Ron nodded. "Course. Pub later?"

"Yeah."

He continued down the hallway, and Harry ducked into his office. It was tiny, but it was also closest to the meeting room. He and Draco had personalised it as much as possible for such a small space: a threadbare Oriental rug swiped from an office redecoration upstairs; old dark-stained bookcases along the wall behind Draco's back; a squashy armchair next to two posters from the 1970 and 1974 Quidditch World Cups on Harry's side of the room. Draco had scrounged a floor lamp from somewhere and put it next to the tiny hearth they used for interoffice Floo. They'd pushed the two desks together in the centre of the room so they could face each other as they worked. After three years it felt as much like home as Harry's flat in a close off Diagon Alley. 

He fell into his chair and started shuffling through the first folder Draco had thrown onto his desk. "Pub tonight?"

"Busy," Draco said, distracted.

"Anything interesting?" 

Draco tossed a photo so it skidded across the surface of Harry's desk and hitched up against his arm. Harry'd been referring to Draco's plans, but he'd take work too. "That's a photo of the fifth blanket. It has _kittens_." 

Harry held up the photo. The blanket was a soft blue, covered in images of white cats playing with green balls of yarn. As he watched, one of the kittens batted at a ball so it unrolled and disappeared beyond the hem of the fabric. "I don't know, it's..." He trailed off at Draco's disbelieving glare. "Right."

They'd worked together long enough that they didn't need to discuss how to split their tasks. Harry pulled a clean sheet of parchment, a quill, inkpot, and blotting paper from his desk, then flipped through the first folder of interview transcripts, looking for any relevant details about the items the women had purchased. Harry longed for a good biro, but the file clerks tended to yell at him when he used one.

Abbott, one of the trainees, staggered through the door carrying a stack of parchment as high as her chin. "Copies of ownership records and inventories," she panted as she dumped the pile onto their desks. "I'm to help you sort."

"Great, thanks," Harry said. "Could you take, hmm, half the inventories and mark anything that could've been the suspicious items, or could've hidden them in some way?"

"Sure, yes." She set aside the top two inches or so of the stack, probably the ownership records, then took half the remaining parchment and headed back out the door.

Harry wasn't seeing any pattern in the shops. Different neighbourhoods of central London, different kinds of goods. No pattern to the victims, either, except gender: the youngest in his pile was 22, the oldest had refused to say but was clearly a centenarian. One woman from Pakistan, one from Scotland, three London natives. Of course, the number of cursed items was small yet. He sighed and made more notes. The glamorous life of an Auror, his arse.

Across the joined desks, Draco sniffed and pushed his hair behind his ears. Harry remembered that hair through his fingers two nights ago, when he'd been sitting at his desk and Draco had closed the door, then dropped to his knees between Harry's thighs and—

"Potter."

He'd been staring. "Yeah. Yes. Sorry."

"Concentrate," Draco said. "I know you find me irresistible, but we really must work some of the time."

Harry smiled and went back to marking up the interviews.

***

"How about that one?" Ron asked, gesturing across the Leaky Cauldron to a twentysomething man in a brown checked shirt.

"I'm not on the market tonight," Harry said.

Nero sighed and fixed him with a paternalistic glare. Sometimes it was easy to forget he was years younger than Harry. 

"I'm here to drink with my mates," Harry said to him, "not to pull."

Ron pointed to him with his pint glass. "If Percy keeps putting you on paperwork duty, your arse is going to take on the shape of your chair, so you'd better get in while you can."

Harry rolled his eyes. He didn't feel like bringing up Draco; he always eventually decided he needed to produce a Malfoy heir and went back to dating women, but since the sex was better than Harry'd ever had with anyone else, he'd take advantage while he could. "Not all of us meet the love of our lives when we're eleven years old," Harry said.

Ron made a face. "She wasn't the love of my life _then_ ," he said. "She was just..."

"...bloody terrifying?" Nero suggested.

"Yeah, actually," Harry said. He could remember her, hair a wild tangle, speaking so fast they could hardly get a word in edgewise, helping Neville find Trevor even though they'd only just met.

"Hasn't changed a bit," Nero said.

"Look at us, still hanging about in the Leaky Cauldron." No marriages yet, no families. All of Harry's peers seemed to be making up for the childhoods they'd lost. The marriage rates even for the students in George's year, still at war when they graduated, were far higher than the ones for Harry's.

"It's a good place," Nero said. "Nobody bothers us, even when we're being gruesome."

"Who's gruesome?" Ron said, and grinned. "Nothing but boring everyday blokes, we are."

Harry slid his Butterbeer glass back and forth on the table between his hands. "Aren't we the pride of the Ministry? We're in the paper enough."

"All your fault," Ron said. 

Nodding, Nero said, "Rhonwen and I hardly ever get our pictures taken. And I'm so dashing, too."

"Our best undercover operatives on the front page of the Prophet? Percy would love that," Harry said.

"We're not really undercover. We just don't mention we're Aurors, sometimes. Not our fault if we look like lawbreakers." Nondescript and skinny, the both of them, if still both taller than Harry. They didn't half look like small-time criminals. "And you're one to talk, Weasley. You're in the papers rather a lot yourself."

"Reflected glow," Harry said. 

Ron threw a chip at his head.

"Could you reflect some of that glow onto me?" Nero smiled his narrow smile. "Good-looking bird at the bar over there."

"Using Harry is cheating," Ron said.

"Easy for you to say, you didn't need him."

"I'm getting another," Harry said. "If she sees me, she sees me—which one are we talking about?"

"Cheating!" Ron said as Nero said, "Long hair, green jumper."

"Back in a moment," Harry said and headed for the bar.

***

In the morning, Harry and Draco headed to one of the shops on their list—one Abbott had marked, Harry noted. Draco spoke to the owner while Harry headed for the back to talk with the person in charge of the deliveries. This proved to be a spotty teenager, son of the owner, probably a recent graduate of Hogwarts. He had scuffed trainers and the improbable name of Antonius.

"Do you remember anything odd?" Harry asked.

Antonius shook his head. "Just the normal stuff, you know, lots of tea."

The items had all sold quickly: small mercies, since it meant the workers still remembered what had happened. "The usual driver?"

"Driver?" Antonius said.

Ah, right. Magical shop. He looked around: fireplace on the wall. "The usual, um, delivery man? Did they come through the Floo?"

"Yeah," Antonius said. "Except the dishes, those were Apparated here in a few trips. You don't want them getting smashed when they get thrown out, you know."

"Okay." Harry considered. The cursed item, a blanket, would have come by Floo. "And no oddities with the goods? The usual things you'd ordered?"

"Yeah. Right numbers and everything."

"Thanks," Harry said. He paused, an idea tickling at the back of his mind. "How did the items get on the shelves?"

Antonius scratched his neck. "I tagged them and put them all in place after we'd closed. Da helped."

"Hmm." Harry looked around the room again: no gloves. "With your bare hands?"

"How else would I do it?"

"And you didn't notice anything odd?" The curses were touch-sensitive. If there had been something there to feel, Antonius or his father would have felt it.

"No."

In fact, Harry felt a right plonker for not realising: if the curses were active when the items were purchased, they never would have been purchased at all. "Right. Have you counted your blankets lately?" 

"Counted?"

"On the shelves," Harry said. "I mean, are you sure the blanket was actually one of the ones that came in? Or do you have one too many?"

"Dunno," Antonius said. "We could check." He grabbed a tattered notebook from the desk and headed for the front of the store; Harry followed.

But, no: the blanket had been one of the delivered ones. Dead end, except they knew for sure the curse was on a time delay or trigger of some kind.

***

They got to the meeting room early for the curse neutralisation party, which meant Percy put them to work: Draco setting up the scoreboard by the door, Harry pushing chairs around to clear a workspace. A little something to keep them sharp, Percy called these games, getting rid of the curses on items that the research department didn't need; Harry thought it was mostly so they didn't whinge so much about all the paperwork. Rhonwen was stirring up the bowl that held the scraps of parchment with their names. Harry hoped he got an early slot so he could choose one of the teapots, even if it meant less chance for uniqueness points—he was comfortably in the lead already.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pansy walk in and divert to speak to Draco. Ron was waving his wand around—relaxing his wrists or some such thing, a habit he'd picked up from one of his former partners. Harry hadn't been able to convince him it made him look like a git.

The room was about full now, so up by the chalkboard Percy reached in the bowl and pulled out a name. "Khan."

Khan nodded and cast Finite Incantatem at one of the blankets. Always best to try the easy spells first, even if one might lose points on style, and Khan was the no-nonsense sort in any case. The blanket glowed briefly silver, and the revealing charm didn't show any spell residue. Khan nodded. Percy marked the points on the scoreboard.

Rhonwen got the next draw and stuck with Finite Incantatem as well. Draco was third; he chose the kitten blanket, got into duelling stance, and had "Reducto" out of his mouth almost before Percy had finished saying his name. The blanket disintegrated. He looked entirely pleased with himself; Harry wondered who'd have to explain to the former owner she wasn't getting her blanket back.

Harry did get a teapot. He cast Retexere on it, just to see. The teapot might have been warm when he touched it, might not, so he cast Finite Incantatem to be sure.

Whoever was creating these items wasn't trying very hard: by the end of the party there were no injuries, and everybody whose name was pulled got at least a point for the chart.

***

Harry was in the common area pouring himself a cup of coffee when Percy came in. Whatever time delay had been placed on the cursed items had failed. A customer in a shop in Covent Garden had picked up a toast rack and stopped breathing; the shop owner had rescued her and Flooed the Ministry. Harry and Draco, as the first team to hand, would get to see the item in situ.

The shop was tiny and crowded, with cute-animal-decorated everything. Harry had looked in the window a couple of times, as it was between his flat and his favourite Indian place. The toast racks were near the counter, luckily, since if the cursed item had been, say, the platters in the opposite corner, neither the shop owner nor any passersby would have been able to see the victim. Harry pulled out paper and pencil to sketch the layout whilst Draco scanned the other items nearby for curses. 

"Nothing," he said as Harry finished. "Just the toast rack."

The owner had kindly left the offending item where it was when the victim collapsed. And it was offending—a white ceramic monstrosity with thin painted lambs to hold the slices of toast apart. Harry cast a charm over the shelf. Most of the items had a dim pearlescent glow, sign of handling by witches and wizards. The toast rack shone a bright indigo with faint turquoise streaks, lovely to look at.

"I've never seen that before," Draco said.

"Nor me," Harry said. He twitched his wand and the signature expanded. Nothing to be seen on higher resolution, only the same opaque colours as before.

"Hmm." Draco made notes in a little book of bound parchment—traditionalist, that one. Or he'd never seen paper notebooks until he was an adult. "New curses are all we need."

Harry nodded. "Do we know what the research department found yet?"

"No, but we can check with them." Draco finished his precisely scripted notes and closed the cover. "Would you care to talk to the owner?"

"Sure." They walked together to the back of the store, easily pacing each other. One of the Ministry staff had spoken to the owner, and the inventory records were already on a table. Draco went to look them over as Harry took a seat across from the owner. "Hello, I'm Harry Potter," he said, extending a hand.

"Oh!" the witch said, eyebrows rising. "Polly Lilliputia. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr Potter, a real pleasure." She was short and plump, almost the archetype of the kind of witch who'd own a shop full of animal-themed goods. Her hair was white and curly and mounded up almost to a point on top, rather like a wizard's hat.

"I wish it could be under more fortunate circumstances," Harry said. Polly nodded, her eyes still slightly wide. "Do you mind if I set up a Dicta-Quill?"

"Please," she said.

Harry pulled the quill and parchment out of his bag and placed them on the table. Couldn't get away from them, even if this was the useful sort. "Thanks," he said. "Could you describe the incident for me?"

She took a breath. "She had been in the store about five minutes. She was looking at our kitchen items, the pots, toast racks, all that. I was ringing up another customer and I saw her fall."

Harry nodded. "And how did you know it was the toast rack she'd touched?"

"I didn't then," Polly said. She rubbed one thumb along the hem of the jumper sleeve on the opposite hand. "I just saw her fall and I ran over as fast as my legs would carry me. Her mouth was working like a fish, poor thing, so I cast a breathing charm. That did the trick. She sat up and I had one of the other customers Floo the Ministry. They told me not to touch anything. Then those nice young men came and tested everything, and now you're here."

"That's lovely, thanks, Mrs Lilliputia." Polly beamed at him. "Had you noticed anything unusual about the toast racks before that?"

"No, not at all," she said. "In fact, I just moved them near the counter a few days ago. They were fine then."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "No sensation of warmth when you touched them?"

"No, nothing at all."

"Well, thanks, Mrs Lilliputia." Harry reached across the table to shake her hand again. "May we Floo you here if we need more information?"

"Yes, or at home." She smiled, fondly. "I'd be happy to speak to you any time you need." 

Draco was scanning through the inventories. "Nothing," he said. "This particular odious item was delivered three weeks ago with a shipment of similar goods."

"Three weeks?" Harry said. "Before any of the other curses, isn't it?"

"Yes." Draco tapped the entry on the page in front of him. "So it seems to be a time trigger."

Harry frowned. "That doesn't explain why the other items triggered as soon as the owners got home."

Draco hummed and looked at the inventory again.

"The owner said she moved the toast racks a few days ago. Maybe there was something on the original shelf." He turned; Polly had already gone back to the front of the store, though the boys out front hadn't let her reopen yet. He hustled out. "Mrs Lilliputia, where were the toast racks before you moved them?"

She thought for a moment. "Where the pepper grinders are now, dear," she said.

"Thank you!" Draco had followed him, as Harry had known he would, and they hurried over to the far corner, where the pepper grinders and platters took up the available shelving. Draco cast the charm this time, and there it was: a spot of indigo-streaked turquoise on the shelf.

"That's two time-delay spells," Harry said. "One to set the charm on the shelf, one to wait after it's been moved."

"Shit," Draco said. The harder the magic, the more clever the perpetrator, the harder to catch.

***

By the end of the week, there were five new victims and three new neighbourhoods.

"I don't understand why it's so distributed," Nero said, looking at the map. "Why haven't they targeted one and stuck with it?"

"Maybe distribution is the point," Rhonwen said. 

"Terror?" Harry said. "Never knowing where it's going to strike?"

Percy shook his head. "Why not a deadly curse, then?" Thursday's victim hadn't had anyone around to cast a countercharm, but had survived nonetheless, the strangulation easing after a minute or so. The mediwizard at St Mungo's had had a harder time removing the curse, though, since it had sunk beneath the skin and gone dormant.

"If it weren't so obvious when people were cursed," Pansy said, "I'd think they were trying to...seed something? Can curses transfer person to person?"

"Yes," Harry and Ron said instantaneously. Fred and George had tried that one year as a birthday present to themselves. Why they'd found it so funny when everyone spoke as if they'd inhaled helium, Harry didn't know.

"All right," Pansy said. "So...are they just incompetent? No casualties in a neutralisation party. How often does that happen?"

Draco shook his head. "Two time delays," he said. "It's neat work."

"Trying not to get caught?" Rhonwen ventured. Harry glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and noticed a fingerprint on one of his lenses, probably Draco's fault—he'd grabbed Harry for a quick snog before the meeting. Harry was often jealous of Draco's compartmentalisation abilities. He pulled his glasses off, breathed on the fingerprint, and rubbed it against the sleeve of his robe.

Distributed, distributed. Why would they be distributed? Harry looked at the map. The points were all clustered in central London, but they knew that; they were working...

...outwards. He put his glasses back on. "They're working from Diagon Alley outwards," he said. "Can we predict where the next objects will be?"

Percy nodded and flipped open a folder. "We know when the objects were delivered, maybe magical research can work out the pattern for the next deliveries."

"We can guess which neighbourhoods they'll hit next," Draco said, "and which ones are probably already cursed." He was making notes in his parchment book again. 

Percy smiled slowly. "Anyone interested in a stakeout?"

***

Harry and Draco were assigned a shop in Kensington. It was relatively prosperous and had several deliveries scheduled for the day. Harry had tried to convince Draco that the Invisibility Cloak was a perfect solution (the required proximity being, in his estimation, a perk) but Draco had pointed out that they needed to hide all the time in case the deliveries were early or late, so instead they went for the less-reliable but larger Invisibility Hut charm. 

"If this is a hut, there should be furniture," Draco said as he dusted the floor with another spell before sitting down.

"Be quiet, this doesn't protect against sound," Harry said.

Draco rolled his eyes. "There's nobody here."

Except for a couple of workers who already knew about them, this was true. The next delivery wasn't scheduled for another hour.

Harry leaned over and said into Draco's ear, "We could cast a silencing charm and have sex."

"Silences both ways," Draco said, "and I don't trust you to pay attention."

As though he'd be the one not paying attention. One of the primary attractions of sex with Draco was the bit at the end where he got wordless and unfocused.

Sighing, Draco stretched his arms. "Did you bring a deck of cards?"

"Cards?" Harry said.

"I'm given to understand it's a way to pass the time amongst Muggles," Draco said. "Or to pretend to do magic, which they think isn't real. Is that true?"

"Yeah." Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. "This is going to be boring, isn't it."

"Unbelievably boring, yes."

"We could still have sex," he said.

Three hours and two deliveries later, Draco looked like he might consider it. They'd scanned the goods as they came in and found no curses, just boxes and boxes of—who possibly could need so many salt cellars? There were only so many wizards in London!

"I almost miss the paperwork," Harry said. 

"You're the one who wanted field work," Draco said.

"We've been in here too long." They had two hours left to go. "I usually picture something dangerous," Harry said wistfully.

"Gryffindors."

An hour later all the stock boys had left, and he had his hand down Draco's trousers.

"For the record," Draco said, breathless, a flush rising on his neck, "we are not going to do this every time we have a stakeout."

Harry hushed him and kissed his shoulder through his robes. "Whatever you say. But I'm not going to put my hand inside your pants until you promise me we can do it _sometimes_."

Somehow, Harry was turned on by the high-pitched frustrated whine that Draco made in response. "I'm a good influence," Draco bit out. Harry traced the head of Draco's cock, and Draco turned his face into Harry's neck and groaned.

"That didn't sound like a yes," Harry whispered into Draco's hair.

"Yes, dammit," Draco said.

Harry slipped his hand into Draco's pants and stroked upwards, fingers following the familiar curve of Draco's shaft. This never got old. Draco reached out and groped Harry through too many layers of clothing, lips still resting against Harry's neck, hair soft against Harry's cheek.

"I don't have any lube," Harry said, "so we'll have to stick to blowjobs."

"You think I'm going to make it through this handjob?" Draco said, irritated, and Harry laughed, and then the curse splashed against the wall over their heads.

"Fuck!" Harry yelled before he thought about it. Way to give your position away, Potter, he thought. Draco already had his wand out and was spelling up the wards; being pinned in place was usually a bad idea, but there were situations where the tradeoff was worth it, such as when your attackers already had good hiding places. Harry stepped in front of him and held up his wand, looking for the source of the curses. The invisibility spell was holding, but they'd been making noise, and then he'd yelled, and dammit Draco had been right. 

Another bolt of red light splashed out from behind a pallet of new boxes; Harry hadn't even seen them come in. Percy was going to have his neck. Hell, _Kingsley_ was going to turn his balls into a paperweight. Harry aimed an Expelliarmus at the pallet, but nothing happened. Draco was so close to done, and once the wards were up they could call for reinforcements—

From behind a second pallet a purple streak of lightning was coming towards them, almost in slow-motion. Towards Draco, kneeling on the ground, not paying attention. Purple was usually okay. Harry dove and it hit him in the stomach. He felt like all the air had been knocked out of him and he landed hard on the ground, but then the faint golden yellow of the wards rose around them and he didn't seem to be dead, so it was probably fine.

"Harry? Harry!" Draco was saying, shaking his shoulder. Harry rolled and met his eyes. "Thank fuck."

"We should probably tell Percy," Harry said. He tried to sit up, but it hurt. Draco looked down at him, eyes wide in horror.

The Floo flashed green and two bodies dove into it. Harry didn't see more than black robes diving through.

"On second thought, maybe we should pretend nothing happened," Harry said, but the wards were down and Draco was dragging him towards the fire. Harry managed to get his feet under him enough to help, and Draco threw powder on the flames and yelled, "St Mungo's!"


	2. Chapter 2

Draco slammed the office door behind them. Harry jumped.

"Gryffindor bravery makes me want to spit," Draco hissed.

Harry spelled a silencing charm around them and threw his robe on the squashy chair. Then he fell back into his desk chair, still exhausted from the day and from the hospital visit (no lasting damage, the mediwitch had pronounced). "I had to cover you," he said, "which I did. Would you have been able to finish that ward if I hadn't?"

"Have you heard of a _counterspell_?" Draco pushed his hair off his face. "Right, I'm sorry, that conflicts with your need to run headfirst into danger. You could have been killed!"

"If Voldemort couldn't—"

Draco slammed his open palm against the door. "I forgot you're invincible."

"I'm not invincible, but I know how to dodge a curse."

"Obviously. If you couldn't, you might have been hit by that idiot! Oh, wait."

"And you were right there if something went wrong," Harry said. "I trust you, and it was more important to get the ward up." 

"So I could be trapped with you behind an impenetrable wall, our air supply slowly running out as you die from an unknown curse? That's a brilliant plan. Why didn't I think of it?" Draco crossed his arms against his chest and glared.

Harry scoffed. "It was purple. There are hardly any deadly purple curses—"

"Hardly any, that makes me feel much better."

"—and aren't we supposed to trust each other's judgment?"

"Show you're worthy of it and maybe I will," Draco said with a sneer.

"Fuck you," Harry said. "It hardly did anything to me. So I was right."

"No, right would've been pulling me out of the way. Or maybe _not trying to have sex with me on a stakeout_."

"Is that what this is about?" Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine, you were right, it was a bad idea."

Draco laughed incredulously. "A bad idea? That's all?"

"Yes, I'm sorry the bad guys showed up early and interrupted us. I should have thought about that."

"Yes, you bloody well should have," Draco said. 

"Right, sorry," Harry said, feeling not at all apologetic. He turned to his desk and pulled out paper and pen to start a draft of his report on the incident, ignoring Draco's snit.

Suddenly there were hands on his shoulders and a voice in his ear. "I don't think you've learnt your lesson yet."

"What lesson?"

"That your skin is very valuable to me," Draco said, and he fastened his teeth into the junction of Harry's neck and shoulder.

Harry tilted his head to the side automatically, giving Draco more room to work. His fingertips pressed into the muscle of Harry's shoulders, relaxing tension Harry hadn't realised he was carrying. Draco released the bite and started licking over the mark he'd made with small, deliberate strokes of his tongue. 

"Maybe you shouldn't bruise it up, then," Harry said.

The hands disappeared from his shoulders. Draco spun Harry's chair around and then crowded up onto the seat with him, legs clamped around the outside of Harry's thighs and his groin not quite close enough to grind up into. "I'll do what I want with it," Draco said. "Won't I?" His fingertips pressed into Harry's jaw.

Harry swallowed. 

Draco leaned forward and kissed Harry hard, holding his face where he wanted it as his other hand started undoing the buttons of Harry's shirt. Harry settled his palms along Draco's slim hips, rubbing his thumbs along the points of bone he could hardly feel through robes and trousers. Draco breathed in through his nose, a cold rush along Harry's cheek, and then moved his mouth down to Harry's jaw. He was making quick work of the buttons.

Harry moved his hand to Draco's groin, rubbing the back of his knuckles up and down the hardness blunted by layers of cloth. He could get his hand inside, but Draco'd had a hand on his cock already today—let him work for it a little. They were both worked up enough from the post-fight adrenaline already.

When Draco got the last of the buttons undone, he leant back to pull his robe off. Harry shucked his shirt as he watched Draco undo the buttons at his throat and yank the robe off over his head—it was rare that Draco would risk losing a button that way, and he appreciated the stretch of it in the muscles of Draco's torso, shadowed lines like a work of art across pale skin dusted with paler hair. Draco leaned forward; Harry grunted at the first touch of bare skin to bare skin, Draco's chest pressing against his as they kissed.

Draco's belt was thick and heavy in Harry's hands. He undid the buckle and the buttons and let the belt weigh the placket open, giving him plenty of room to reach inside and curl his fingers around Draco's cock, his stomach firm through its prickly layer of hair against the back of his fingers. Draco pressed forward with his mouth, knocking Harry's head back against the chair, neck stretched. He kissed his way back to Harry's ear. "Isn't this better than the cold floor of a storeroom," he said, one hand rubbing Harry's nipple, the other reaching down into his trousers.

"Yes," Harry said, nose full of the scent of Draco's shampoo, lips tickling from the soft strands a little too close to avoid.

"And don't you want to stay in one piece so I can keep doing this to you."

"Yes," Harry said again. He pressed his hand against Draco's firm balls and stroked back upwards; Draco set his teeth against Harry's earlobe but didn't bite.

"Remember that," Draco said. He skimmed his fingers lightly up Harry's spine, drawing goosebumps. 

Harry shifted forward so his pulls along Draco's cock rubbed against his own prick, full and hard in his trousers. He needed it, needed the friction, if Draco was going to keep teasing him. Draco came back to his mouth and kissed him, tilting his head in the way he knew drove Harry mad, even as he shifted his hips forward into Harry's hand.

He pulled his tongue back and Harry tried to chase it, only managing to peck Draco half on his chin. "You went down," Draco said. He looked to the side, his eyes narrow and grey. "You went _down_ , and I didn't know if you would get back up."

Sentiment wasn't what Harry wanted right now, or mostly not what he wanted, even though he felt a spreading warmth low in his chest at the words. He rubbed Draco's side briskly with his free hand, needing the contact. "I always get back up," he said. Draco closed his eyes. Not good. "Draco," he said again, insistently, and Draco turned his head back, a slight flush touching his cheekbones. He looked at Harry's chin. "This is the job. I'll do my best, but this is the job."

Slowly, Draco nodded.

Harry moved his hand on Draco's erection, which had softened a bit. "I could go down right now," he said, smiling so Draco would know it was a deliberate attempt to change the mood, not a dismissal of what he'd said.

This time Draco met his eyes. "No," he said, and stood back up. Harry tried to cover his surprise. "Over the desk."

That worked too. Harry kicked trousers and boxers off and set his palms on the desktop. He heard the squeak of the drawer where they kept the lube, then felt Draco's palms on his hips—not at the angle he was expecting—and then Draco's tongue, almost gentle as it pressed against Harry's hole. Harry spread his thighs and pushed back a bit into Draco's face, trying to urge him deeper, but Draco just put a hand along the curve of his arse cheek and held him in place. 

Fuck, he was going to beg if Draco didn't start doing something soon, something more than the little licks, the teasing wiggles. He pulled back long enough to blow on Harry's arse, and Harry made a noise he dearly hoped he wouldn't remember later. Cold, but not as cold as the lube when Draco's fingers pressed up where his tongue had been, up and in and then back out again, so slowly it set Harry's teeth on edge. He made himself hold still as Draco tried to feel every inch of him from the inside out. And then tried to taste him from the inside out, his tongue wrapping around and between his fingers. 

"Are you going to fuck me, or what?" Harry asked, aiming for demanding and mostly hitting breathy.

Draco moved his tongue to Harry's balls. Harry bit his lip and breathed through his nose as Draco sucked the loose skin into his mouth, timing touches of his tongue with the thrusting of his fingers. Harry reached down to feel for the candy-floss strands of Draco's hair and only managed to rub his fingers along the stubble on his jaw. Draco made a strangled sort of noise and pulled back. His arm came around Harry's hip, his wet hand wrapped around the base of Harry's cock, and then Harry could feel a thick bluntness pressing into him from behind. He breathed out and relaxed and Draco slid in, big but not quite too big, just the edge of what Harry could take. 

"Christ, Draco," Harry said. He circled his hips backward and Draco rewarded him with a tight stroke along his cock. 

Now Draco had his mouth on the back of Harry's shoulder, not really biting or sucking, just resting there open, his breath hot on Harry's skin. Harry could feel the buzzing in his fingers and toes already, increasing with every pull of Draco's hand along his shaft, every twitch as Draco moved within him.

Draco shifted towards him minutely and the angle changed, suddenly hitting Harry just right with every thrust. It made his elbows turn to jelly and it was all he could do to keep himself up, keep his cock free of the desk so Draco could work it. He moaned and writhed, wanting it faster, and Draco thrust up to meet him, and it hardly took any time at all before Harry reached to hold Draco in place and pushed _back_ and tensed and shot all over the desk, and then. He let himself down off his aching arms to sprawl out and wait for Draco to finish, too, which took about as long as Harry could take, sated and oversensitive as he was.

Draco pulled out, leaving Harry feeling open and rather sticky, then peeled Harry up from the desk and dragged him to the squashy chair. They sat, half on top of each other, and Draco said into Harry's hair, "And let that be a lesson to you."

"Yes, Professor," Harry said sleepily.

***

"You didn't hear or see the men come in?" Percy said.

Harry shook his head. "We were going over our notes." This was the lie they had worked out, with the benefit of being particularly believable to Percy, who reviewed his notes at every available opportunity. "And talking. They must have heard us and then ducked behind the boxes when they couldn't see where we were."

Nodding, Percy wrote something on the parchment in front of him. He'd co-opted Harry's desk, and Harry was working very hard not to notice where Percy's supplies were relative to the position Harry had been in last night. "So there's no way to know who they were, or how long they'd been there, or what they heard," Percy said. He looked up. "Were you discussing anything sensitive? If they overheard—"

"No," Draco said hastily. "Just inventory. We're still working on the distribution angle."

"Good." Percy scratched something else down. "It was good that you were there—no cursed items were found in the crates, so you must have interrupted their delivery."

"Glad to know we're useful for something," Harry said.

"You did very well," Percy said, somewhat by rote. "Did St Mungo's identify the curse?"

"Something in the stun family," Harry said, "they think. I didn't get the full hit because I jumped into the curse."

Percy looked up. "Jumped into—"

"Draco was raising the wards."

Scratch, scratch, went the quill. "Well, try not to do that again," he said. 

"I have already made that point," Draco said.

Harry looked at a neutral spot on the wall so he wouldn't blush.

"All right. If you've been cleared by the mediwizards"—Harry nodded—"we can put you back in the field tomorrow." Percy stood up. "Thank you, gentlemen."

Harry and Draco made the requisite noises as Percy swept out of the room. Pomposity suited him well, Harry thought. He stood up to make his way back to the desk, but then Pansy popped her head through the open door. "Hail the conquering heroes," she said.

"Hullo, Pansy," Draco said.

As Pansy settled into Harry's desk, Harry sank back into the squashy chair. It was more comfortable anyway. 

"By the way, don't call him a hero. We're trying to _cure_ the curse-jumping behaviour," Draco said.

"Sure." Pansy waved him off. She leaned back and eyed both of them. "Have fun with our superior officer?"

"He's not so bad," Harry said, both out of loyalty and because it was true.

Pansy picked up one of the photos on Harry's desk and examined it. "Whenever he annoys me, I just think about the fact that his name means 'pierced.' Can you imagine?"

Harry could. He didn't thank her for it, either.

"No curses on the deliveries," Draco said. "We interrupted whatever they were doing."

"Drat." She put the photos back. "So the deliverymen are involved? I assumed it was something on the supply side but there's no reason it must be."

Draco's eyes went unfocused, as they often did when he was chewing over a particularly tricky problem. Or about to come, but Harry didn't think there was much danger of that at the moment. Still, the expression brought out a kind of fondness in him; he was used to feeling lots of things towards Draco—annoyance, respect, lust, the pleasure of working in perfect concert—but fondness was a bit strange. "Hmm," Draco said. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Gets you off the hook," Harry said to Pansy. "Muggle shipping and all."

She grinned at him. "You never know. Wizards moonlight."

Harry considered making a vampire joke but decided against it. Instead, he stretched. "More paperwork for us," he said. "Delivery companies. Joy."

"I'm sure you can have Abbott back," Pansy said. "She's been talking about how much she enjoyed working with you two. I don't think you should let her go, none of the rest of us can stand you."

"Clearly," Draco said, only half paying attention. He'd already pulled out some of the files and was sorting through them. 

Pansy turned to look at Harry full on. "You don't seem to be missing any bits," she said.

"No, I'm fine."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but Harry thought it was inquisitive, not angry. "Jumped into the curse, I heard?"

"Draco was casting the wards," Harry repeated.

She nodded. "Thanks. I like him in one piece, too."

"Has its benefits," Harry allowed.

She grinned at him again and stood up. "Good work, Potter."

"Thanks, Pansy."

***

Two weeks later and only three new victims. Harry didn't know if their adventure in the storeroom had anything to do with it, but he'd take a reduction of random strangulation throughout wizarding London even if it meant they had less chance of ever catching the culprits.

No new curses on any of the items, so they had the entire recent collection to use as fodder for the curse neutralisation party. This was how Harry discovered that one of the teapots had his face on it.

"That's just creepy," he said.

Percy pushed it front and center. "All yours."

"Thanks."

"Teacher's pet!" Rhonwen called from the back, to general laughter. 

Harry grinned. "Hey, I'm not the one who lost first position by failing to get rid of a Bat Bogey Hex," he said.

"More Weasley favouritism!" And more laughter.

Some days, Harry really loved his job. He stepped to the middle of the room and fingered his wand, debating what exactly he wanted to do to the teapot. Break it into pieces like an orange, he decided, then lift the curse. 

"Segmentis," he said, and gestured at the teapot. There was a puff of smoke and the teapot shattered into tiny burnt fragments. 

Silence from the room. 

After a moment, Percy said, "That's an unusual interaction. I'll let research know."

"Thanks," Harry said. He was grateful when the Finite Incantatem worked as planned.

***

Eventually, Harry pried Abbott's first name out of her: Clara. She shook her head slowly at the parchment covering Harry's and Draco's desks. "Almost nothing in common," she said. "Does that even make sense? How many deliverymen can there be in wizarding London?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "At least..." He counted. "Forty. But some of those are Muggle."

"This is almost deliberate," she said. "There should be more overlaps. We should hand this off to research."

Harry hummed and picked up one of the few pairs they'd found. Muggle, this one, though. "Maybe there are fake identities?"

Clara made a note. "I'll ask for employment records. Who knows if we can get them, though."

"They'd have to be recent hires," Harry said. "Working multiple jobs full-time..."

"Would they have to be full-time?" Draco asked from the squashy chair. He sounded distracted.

"Maybe not."

"It's like they're ghosts," Clara said. "No records..."

Draco said, "Ghosts have records."

Surprised, Clara looked at him. "They do?"

"Required registry. Spirit Division, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."

"But if they can hide—" Clara said.

"Not for very long. Hard to miss a pearly white person blundering through the walls."

"There are no invisible ghosts?" Harry said.

"Not permanently," Draco said. "I'm told it's quite uncomfortable."

Harry and Clara exchanged a glance. Harry'd lived longer in wizarding Britain than amongst Muggles, but some of it was still bloody strange. He was glad he had backup in this opinion.

"Okay." Harry cracked his knuckles. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Draco wincing. Let him. Weren't his hands. "How many overlaps do we have? Three?"

"Four," Clara said. She picked up the pairs. Harry cleared some space to focus on those. "Two Muggle, two wizard." They tended to be in adjoining neighbourhoods, but other than that no pattern revealed itself to him.

Clara's hand shot out. "Wait, this one's in Diagon Alley," she said. "How do they have Muggle delivery?"

"There's an alley on the west side," Harry said. "Electricity for the residents who want it, and deliveries. Looks to the Muggles like the backs of the houses on the other side."

"Oh." She looked a little disappointed. It would have been nice to make a breakthrough. "Off Charing Cross, then?"

"Yeah."

She chewed on her lip. "If it's..." She trailed off.

Harry looked over at Draco, who was still chasing payments through the books of the Kensington shop. His eyes were flicking back and forth across the parchment, totally absorbed. Kind of sexy.

Suddenly Clara slapped the table. Harry turned back, mildly startled. 

"Who's on Muggle liaison, Parkinson and Danielfield? Why do they put the wizard-born there? Stupid." Harry automatically checked over his shoulder for Percy, but he wasn't there. "CCTV cameras," she said. "We can watch the Muggle deliveries."

"Oh!" Harry said. "Of course, I didn't think—"

"Neither did I." She frowned. "We could have had this weeks ago."

"I'll get right on it," Harry said.

She poked him in the arm. "My idea, I'll take care of it." She grabbed the Muggle delivery notes.

"Could be a while before the paperwork goes through," Harry said.

"Better get started, then!" She waved and headed out the door like a cannonball.

***

As he watched Draco cook, Harry thought about how good he looked in Harry's kitchen.

Cook might be an overstatement. He was just assembling some scones, jam, toast, and cheese on a platter; he'd refused to let Harry handle the refreshments. Just as well, as Harry was feeling a bit under the weather.

"You don't have any opinions to offer?" Draco asked. His hands were busy slicing the cheese and he didn't look up, but Harry knew he could tell Harry was watching him. 

"I trust you," Harry said.

Draco frowned slightly but kept slicing. "Indeed, food from your kitchen could be dangerous. More than half your refrigerator is takeaway."

"I work late," Harry said. Not quite true, and Draco usually worked as late as he did. "I'm surprised you know how to do this, though. Didn't you have house-elves growing up?"

"Had," Draco said, with finality. 

"Well, thanks," Harry said. "And I'm sure the others will appreciate it too."

Draco huffed a small breath that was almost a snort. "Weasley's fine palate will be satisfied, don't worry."

Really, this was the first time Harry had had a chance to simply spend time with Draco in his flat. Usually they took care of things at the office, except for the few times they'd had to drag each other home after injuries or too much beer. It was...sort of nice. Domestic. 

Technically this meeting was a work function, though, so Harry didn't expect the circumstances to be repeated any time soon; he'd have to enjoy it whilst he could. Apart from Clara, he was the only one with a DVD player, and his apartment was bigger than hers, so the CCTV viewing party was his to host. It had only taken her two weeks to get the film, too. He owed Pansy a Galleon for that one.

"Satisfactory?" Draco asked, lining up the last few cheese slices on the platter.

"Sure." Harry crossed the kitchen and slid his hand into Draco's hair; Draco looked up, mild surprise written across his features. "Thanks," Harry said, and leaned in for a kiss.

Soft, no promise: the others would be here soon. Just a slow press of lips, chasing Draco's smile down to the corners of his mouth. There was a little crease between Draco's eyebrows when Harry pulled back, a small frown, but Draco's eyes were wide open and watching him. 

"You're sexy when you're good at things," Harry said.

Draco smirked. "So, all the time," he said.

"Yeah," Harry said.

They stood for a minute, smiling at each other, until they heard knocking. Draco looked down at the platter, and Harry headed for the door.

Almost as soon as he had it open, Hermione was through the door and into his arms. "Hey, Hermione," he laughed into her hair. "Good to see you."

Ron followed her in and handed Harry a bottle of wine. 

"How was Japan?" Harry asked as she pulled back and reached for Ron's hand.

"Just lovely—they have written records long before anything in the Ministry," she said. "And the potions they make! The novel ingredients, Harry, it was amazing."

Harry grinned. "I'm glad you had a good time, but it's nice to have you back." He raised the wine. "Do I need to chill this?"

"No, 's fine," Ron said.

"All right. Have a seat, I'll go get the wine glasses."

They settled on the couch as Harry walked back to the kitchen. Draco was washing the cheese knife in the sink. "Mind taking the food out?" Harry asked as he pulled down the wine glasses.

Draco nodded, dropped the knife into the dish drainer, and picked up the platter. Harry followed him out. Draco knelt down by the table—which gave Harry some bad thoughts—and set the platter down, exchanging greetings with Ron and Hermione. Harry set the glasses down and peeled the foil off the top of the wine bottle. 

"Any progress?" Harry asked Ron as Draco and Hermione got into a serious discussion about boomslang skin and how it related to Japanese dragon scales. 

Ron shook his head. "Still just the two new cursed chairs," he said. "Down to one a week, maybe they've given up and we're just on cleanup now."

Harry nodded. "Hopefully we find something tonight."

"I still owe an arse-kicking to whoever cursed you in that storeroom," Ron said. 

"I'm going to hold you to that."

Across the room, Draco had settled into one of Harry's armchairs and was leaning towards Hermione, legs crossed at the knee, long lean lines emphasised by the excellent cut of his clothing. Distracting. "I know you'd do the same for me, mate," Ron said.

"How long has she been home?" Harry asked, nodding at Hermione.

"Few days," Ron said. His cheeks got a bit red and he added, "We've mostly been staying in."

"Course," Harry said. "Nice to have her back, though."

"Yeah," Ron said. He smiled, a little goofy. 

There was another knock at the door, and Harry opened it to find Ginny and Clara on the other side—good, no more waiting. He ushered them in.

"Nice place, Potter," Clara said. She dropped into one of the armchairs. "I figured you'd have a bachelor pad."

"You don't think this is a bachelor pad?" Harry asked, gesturing around. "Plenty of beer. Huge telly and stereo."

"Overstuffed chairs and pictures of your family! It's cute."

"Put away all the photos of nude men, I see," Ginny said. 

"No, they're all in the hallway now," Ron said, deadpan. 

Draco looked tremendously amused.

"If we're all ready?" Harry asked. He turned on the telly and brought up the CCTV footage from the first camera.

Ron leaned over to Hermione and said, "Now you get to see the exciting life of an Auror firsthand." She smiled back at him.

They'd only acquired the films for ten minutes before and after the delivery vans had arrived, but even so it was hours of footage. Harry thought they could probably manage two locations tonight. He grabbed one of the scones off the platter and settled back into his chair.

Ginny kept up a running commentary on the attractiveness of all the delivery men. Amusing, especially since there was nothing out of the ordinary in the first few deliveries, just men unloading cartons onto dollies, rolling them into the shops, then coming back out, closing the doors, and driving off.

Harry stood up to grab another scone and grabbed the arm of the chair to steady himself. His head was swimming a little, and his stomach felt strange. Perhaps not another scone, then, he thought; too much sugar. He grabbed a triangle of toast and some cheese and sat back down to watch three men have an intense, silent, grainy discussion, apparently about how to open the doors to their own vehicle.

"Anyone want to bet me five quid we won't find anything on these tapes?" Clara said. The dead silence was answer enough.

Harry finished his toast and cheese. His head was still fuzzy and the stomach upset was worsening. Exactly what he wanted on a Thursday night.

On the screen the men figured out the door handle and pulled up the door. More unloading. More completely innocuous behaviour. 

By the time the next film came up, this one even grainier than the last, Harry was about to give up in despair. The group was restless, too, shifting position or grabbing more refreshments. "Wine, Harry?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded and she passed him a glass. He went to take a sip and nearly gagged at the smell, then—

He heard Hermione's worried voice calling behind him as he ran for the bathroom and vomited up everything he'd eaten since lunch. Fuck. He hadn't vomited since George's stag night. It hadn't got any nicer—in fact it was probably worse since he was fully conscious and able to taste everything. Bleagh. He flushed the toilet, then leaned his forehead against the cool seat.

Soft sounds behind him as the door opened and then Draco's fingers were petting his hair. "Harry, are you all right?" he asked. Quiet. Damn. Draco was worried, and that made Harry nervous.

"Yeah," he said, sitting up. He was still queasy. "Must be ill. Sorry."

"Don't apologise," Draco said. He brought his hand down to rest on Harry's shoulder. "Do you want to come back out?"

Harry nodded, which made his stomach tense and roil. Bloody hell. "Just let me brush my teeth."

Draco met his eyes, searching, then nodded and went back out. Harry tried to get the taste of vomit out of his mouth.

By the time he made it to the sitting room, everyone was packing up their things to go. "No offence, mate, but I'd rather not catch what you've got," Ron said, and it wasn't hard to smile at him, at least.

"Sorry," Harry said. "Try again in a couple of days?"

"Let's see how you're feeling first," Ginny said. 

Hermione pressed her hand against his arm. "Do you have any medications? We could pick something up for you."

Harry tried to think of what was in his cabinet. "I think I'm all right," he said. "Maybe I just ate something bad for supper."

She nodded. "Drink plenty of fluids," she said, the slightly bossy tone giving Harry fond memories of Hogwarts classes. The room emptied remarkably quickly after that in a flurry of bags and bottles and shoes; Harry had a quick nonverbal conversation with Draco that he was fine and Draco should go home. Draco didn't look happy, but he nodded nonetheless, and soon Harry had the flat all to himself again. He curled up on the sofa and fell asleep before he could gather the energy to get back to the bedroom.

***

In the morning, Harry was awoken by an annoyed tawny owl who was trying to land on his face.

"Sorry, sorry," he said blearily. He felt like hell, though at least he was no longer nauseous—probably because there was nothing left in his stomach. He sat up, staggered to the kitchen, and pulled out some owl treats. The owl seemed supremely unamused by him, but took the treats and flapped back out the window. 

Harry unwound the scroll the owl had delivered. Draco's neat writing spun spidery lines across the parchment.

_I made you an appointment at St Mungo's at 11 o'clock. Go even if you are feeling better; they still don't know what curse hit you in the storeroom. I will tell Percy you are ill today, and if you show up anyway I will Stun you and lock you in your bedroom._

He glanced at his watch: eight o'clock. A few hours, then. Dare he try breakfast? He still felt unsteady; best not. Instead, he turned on the telly and half-watched whatever came on until it was time to head to the hospital.

He was whisked immediately into Spell Damage before anyone in the lobby could get a good luck at him. He sat on the examining bench and waited, and waited, and waited, increasingly glad he hadn't eaten anything yet.

Finally the door opened and a young Healer bustled in. Not one he'd seen before, not that he came in that often. He shook her hand when she introduced herself ("Dr McLaughlin") and she sat down with his medical history in front of her. He wondered idly what sorts of things were in there.

"I understand you've been vomiting?" she said.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Started last night. I was eating with some friends—just a scone and then some toast and cheese, and I threw up maybe an hour after I started eating."

She made a note. "Did your friends eat the same food?"

"Yes, and none of them are sick."

"All right," she said. "Have you vomited since you woke up today?"

"No," Harry said, "but I haven't eaten anything."

She nodded. "All right, let's have a look at you." She did something with her wand, made him breathe, looked in his eyes. "Lie back." She pressed various places on his stomach. "Any nausea? Tenderness?"

"No more than before," he said.

"Hmm." She flicked her wand, and scrolls of various colours made abstract patterns above his navel. Flick, colours. Flick, field of triangles. Flick, wavy lines. Flick, colours, her eyes widening. "If you'll excuse me, Mr Potter, I'll be right back," she said, and practically ran out the door.

Harry pulled his shirt down and wondered if he should sit up. The table was cold under his shoulders, but he'd probably be ordered down again once she came back, so it wasn't worth it. Maybe they'd know what the curse was after this.

Dr McLaughlin walked back in with three other people, one of whom looked like a student and two who were much older. They all introduced themselves efficiently and the oldest flicked his wand at Harry, not bothering to make him lift up his shirt. More coloured scroll work.

"That's impossible!" said the student. 

That didn't sound good.

"Excuse us, please," said one of the others, and they walked out again. 

After a moment, Dr McLaughlin came back in. "You can sit up, thanks, Mr Potter," she said. Harry did, shaking his head a little as the blood flow to his head changed; at least now he could look at the plain white walls instead of the plain white ceiling. "I have a few more questions. They're a bit personal."

Harry frowned. "All right."

"Do you have sex with men?" she said, her eyes fixed carefully on the wall behind him.

"Yes," Harry said. It was rather public knowledge, thanks to a photograph in the Daily Prophet a year before.

"Have you experimented with any recreational potions?"

"Recreational potions?" Harry asked.

"Anything intended to enhance sexual experience, alter perception, alter gender?"

"No," Harry said curiously. He wished there was something to look at, to distract himself.

"Hmmm." She looked down. "But you were cursed by an unknown assailant, I see. Four weeks ago?"

"Yes."

"That's about right," she said. Harry blinked. "And—forgive me. You had penetrative intercourse with a male around that time?"

Dammit, he was blushing. "Yes," he said.

"Receiving?"

"Sorry?" He frowned at her. "Does it matter?" 

"It does."

He nodded.

Dr McLaughlin looked down and made another note on the parchment in front of her. "Mr Potter, I'm afraid I have some rather awkward news to tell you."

Harry stared at her for about ten seconds before he said, "Yes? What is it?"

"Ah." She cleared her throat. "You seem to be pregnant."

"I—what?" Harry said. He could feel a laugh bubbling up his throat. 

"Of course this must be a shock," she said. "It doesn't happen very often—"

"It's happened _before_?" Harry said.

She smiled a little. "Not in about forty years, my colleagues tell me. So you're going to be in demand from our Curiosities Department. Not that you're required to participate," she added hastily. "But they would be very grateful if you would."

"I'm sorry," Harry said. "Did you say I was pregnant?"

"Yes," she said patiently. "Your foetus is approximately four weeks old."

"How does that even work?"

"Something, probably the curse, caused your body to create a womb and a small number of eggs," she said. 

Harry looked down in horror at his stomach.

"In this case, it appears to have created the womb in a state ready to accept a pregnancy. The opening to the womb connects to the only part of your body in the area that would suit, that is, your intestines."

Harry winced.

"And once your partner ejaculated inside you, biology took over," she said, which really was Harry's breaking point. By the time he'd stopped laughing tears were streaming down his face.

"We have psychiatric staff should you need help with this situation," Dr McLaughlin said as if she had not been interrupted.

"No, thanks," Harry said. He paused. "Um, so, nine months still, or—"

"Thirty-eight weeks," she said. "Normally we count gestation from the last date of a woman's menstrual period, but of course you didn't have one—"

"Of course," Harry said, fighting back laughter again.

"—so you're the equivalent of six weeks, in case you would like to examine any of the literature on the subject."

Harry imagined he would. Or he imagined Draco would. God. He was going to have to tell this to _Draco_. "Right," he said.

"You should see us at least every week right now, since we don't exactly know the progression," she said. Paused. "Assuming you would like to continue with the pregnancy."

The problem with being a gay man in this situation was that Harry had literally never considered what he would do in the case of an unintended pregnancy. "I'll have to think about it," he said. "A week won't be too long to decide?"

"No," she said. "I'll have the secretary schedule you."

"Thanks," Harry said.

She stood up to shake his hand, and all of a sudden his mind got stuck on one thing. "How does it get out?" he blurted.

A ghost of a smile passed across her face. "We can widen and loosen certain tissues if you would prefer to give birth naturally." Oh God. Harry thought he might pass out. "...but it would probably be easier to deliver by Caesarian section," she finished. 

"Yes," Harry said.

"Here's a list of suggested prenatal vitamins," she said, handing him a piece of paper, "and be prepared to feel a bit strange—your body is producing hormones in quantities you won't be used to."

"Thanks," Harry said automatically. He rather thought the fact of being pregnant would overwhelm any hormonal strangeness, but who knew?

Dr McLaughlin walked out. Harry hyperventilated in the room for a few minutes before he managed to follow her.

***

When Harry got home, he sent Draco an owl. _Staying home as ordered. Come by after work?_ Then he lay down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.

He wasn't entirely sure he believed it yet. It seemed so strange that there could be... in his... He pulled up his shirt to stare at his stomach. He still looked as vaguely malnourished as he always did. He rubbed his hand over his lower belly, but he didn't feel anything at all. Could he really be pregnant?

The thought made him want to crawl out of his skin. His body was _his_. Not anybody else's. That there might be a tiny person floating around somewhere—

But the thought of not being pregnant, if he really was right now, was even worse. Because he'd always wanted a family, a family like the one he'd had so briefly with his own parents, a family he never could have had with the Dursleys. A family like the Weasleys had, like Ron and Hermione would have one day. And while he would have been fine with adoption—

What was he going to do?

He curled up on his side. Protective already. How could he raise a baby though—oh, breast feeding, he hadn't thought of that. What if he grew _tits_? He placed his hand flat against his chest, but no, nothing yet. When did women start growing—did they get bigger at all, even? He was so fucked.

***

"I brought chicken soup," Draco said when Harry opened the door. "How are you feeling?"

"Not much better." With evening the nausea was getting worse. How long was he going to have to do this? Should have asked Dr McLaughlin. "I'll put it in the refrigerator. Have a seat."

"No, no, let me." Draco pulled the paper bag firmly away from Harry's grasping fingers and took it to the kitchen. Harry flopped onto his back on the sofa. All afternoon to think, and he still had no idea how to have this conversation.

Draco came back into the room and sat down by Harry's feet at the end of the sofa—another advantage of being short. He stifled a laugh at the inappropriate thought of how short their kid would be. "What did the mediwitch say?" Draco said. He rested his hand on Harry's bare ankle and rubbed soothing circles along the bone.

"Healer," Harry said. "Uh. I'm pregnant."

Draco smiled, the edges of his teeth glinting through the small part in his lips. "Lovely," he said. "Boy or girl?" 

"They didn't tell me," Harry said. "It's only been four weeks."

The rubbing fingers slowed. "It's only been—"

"After I got cursed in the storeroom," Harry said. There was too much air in this room; it was pressing down on his chest, pushing him into the sofa.

Draco stared at the wall for what felt like a year. "You're really pregnant," he said finally.

Harry laughed, short. "That's what they said."

"You—" Draco shook his head.

"Is this male pregnancy thing common?" Harry asked. "Because it didn't take them very long to figure it out."

Draco's fingers now had a death grip on Harry's ankle. He didn't say anything.

"Anyway. Um, it's yours, obviously."

"Obviously," Draco echoed, eyes far away.

"So. Uh. I think I'm going to—have it. I want kids. So if you want to..." Want to what? Participate? Harry didn't know how to end that sentence.

"A child," Draco said. "We're going to have a child." Draco was still staring off into the middle distance, frozen. 

"Yeah," Harry said, inadequately.

Draco nodded and didn't say anything for long enough that Harry started to worry. "We—oh." He turned to Harry, smiling suddenly, almost blinding. "We're having a _child_ ," he said again. "I'll have a blood heir. We can be together."

"Yeah?" Draco had always said it was about his family obligations, but Harry had half-suspected that that was just a way to break it off when he got bored. If Draco really wanted something— "That would be—yeah. Wonderful."

Draco reached his hand out and grabbed Harry's arm, helping to pull him upright. Harry reached awkwardly around Draco's waist, and Draco's arm circled him round the shoulders. Not really snuggling, just—contact. "Mother will want to plan the wedding," Draco said. 

Harry blinked.

"And we'll have to discuss housing, and we won't be able to be partners any more, far too dangerous."

"No," Harry said.

Draco waved him off. "Or one of us could stay in the office. You will until you give birth, certainly, it's far too dangerous otherwise."

"I think I can assess my own level of danger," Harry said. Draco rolled his eyes and pushed his fingers into the hair below Harry's ear. "But I meant, I'm not going to marry you."

Draco recoiled like he'd been slapped. 

"I know this is a shock. For both of us," Harry said. Draco laughed abruptly. "And I'm glad you want to—make this a relationship and not just fucking. But we hardly spend any time together outside of work—how can we decide to get married?"

For a few moments, Draco chewed that over. "Harry," he said finally, soft and quiet, intimate. "How are we going to raise a baby if we're not married?"

"Lots of people do," Harry said.

Draco gave him an astonished look.

"Look, I'm not—I'm not saying no forever," Harry said. "Just not right now. Not till we know each other better." That seemed to calm him down. "And—the Healers could still be wrong. Or something else could happen."

Draco nodded, thinking. "You mean you don't want to tell anyone yet," he said.

"No."

"And you won't marry me. Yet," he added when he saw Harry was about to protest.

"Right."

"Do I get a say in anything?"

Harry frowned. "Yeah, obviously, it's just that right now—"

Draco cut him off. "Then I'm sleeping here tonight," he said. "You're not sure we could work as a married couple; let me show you we can."

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

"Good." Draco smiled at him and then tucked his face into Harry's neck. "I won't even make you change your horrid Gryffindor bedclothes."


	3. Chapter 3

Only one new cursed teapot appeared in the next week, and it was trivial to trace it to a shipment two weeks before (with no connections to any of the other shops). Percy declared the investigation cold and assigned Ron and his partner to keep an eye on it. Draco protested, probably out of a warped sense of Harry's honour or something, but before long they'd been assigned some teenage graffiti artists annoying the retailers in Knockturn Alley. Minor, but perhaps a nice break after the last case.

***

"I brought you slippers," Draco said. He dropped them on the coffee table. They were fur-lined red and black plaid. Sort of Gryffindor, Harry supposed, probably the closest Draco could make himself come to red and gold.

"I have slippers," Harry said. He held up his feet. They were gold and had stuffed Snitches for toes.

Draco rolled his eyes. "You have glorified plush animals," he said. "These will actually keep your feet warm."

Harry crossed his arms. "I like these."

"And that is what you have me for." Draco dropped the bag in his other hand. "More chicken soup. You have to eat."

"I had lunch," Harry said. Rather a big one too for his current diet—some light sandwiches with a small salad. Very healthy and everything.

"How much weight have you gained?" Harry didn't answer. He'd lost five pounds, but he wasn't going to tell Draco that. "See, not eating enough." He dropped to the sofa and tugged at Harry's hair until he lifted up, then slid his thighs under Harry's head and started stroking his hair. It was comforting, but also incredibly disturbing. "Should I force feed you? I know lots of ways to make you obey."

"Feeling domestic tonight?" Harry asked, amused.

"Feeling like I need to protect my child from his idiot of a father," Draco said.

"His?" 

"Obviously." His fingers found the knot in Harry's neck and started kneading.

"You don't have to bring me food," Harry said.

"Sorry, should I let you starve yourself into unconsciousness so I can claim custody more easily?" Draco said.

"Now you're just being nasty," Harry said.

"You seem to like it." He hadn't stopped the massage.

Harry pressed his neck up into Draco's fingers. "Thinking about single parenting, then?"

"It might suffice as a stop gap until I convince you to marry me." Draco shifted his hand downward and started rubbing Harry's shoulders. "This must be the Muggle influence."

"What is?"

"This idea that it makes sense to raise a child out of wedlock," Draco said. "Wizards don't do that."

"Don't they?" Harry said, and thought about it. No, he supposed he didn't know anyone who had. Charlie's shotgun wedding had been something of a scandal, but at the time he'd thought it had more to do with the other Weasleys never having met her. "That's ridiculous. Plenty of single parents do wonderful jobs with their children, and plenty of married parents are shit."

"Mmhmm." Draco was clearly humouring him, but Harry would take it for now. "Are you going to eat your soup?"

He didn't really want to. "In a bit," he said. He'd have to make Draco do the warming charm—his magic was still a little wonky, though the mediwitch said it would go away in another month or two.

Draco's hand stilled, resting on Harry's shoulder. "What are we watching?" he asked after a moment.

"I don't know," Harry said. "Oh, it's EastEnders."

"Fascinating," Draco said. His tone said it was anything but.

***

Unlike the Muggle world, Knockturn Alley didn't have CCTV cameras, which would have made this job much easier. Instead Harry and Draco were sitting outside a café at the corner of Diagon Alley and Knockturn, looking for suspicious behaviour.

"How bad can graffiti be?" Harry said.

"Economic vitality," Draco said. "Nobody goes into your shop when it has 'cock' painted on the windows."

Harry sipped his coffee, keeping his hands wrapped around it for warmth—bit nippy for April. "Right." 

"Must be bad for the shop owners to have requested an Auror presence," Draco said.

"Technically we're in Diagon Alley. Want to place bets on the age of the perpetrators?" 

"Eighteen," Draco said. "Ten sickles."

"Cheap," Harry said. "I'll say fourteen."

"Wandering around Knockturn in April? They'd all be at Hogwarts."

"Right," Harry said. "Younger? Could eleven-year-olds cause this much havoc?"

"Language is a little colourful."

"Yeah." Ten sickles probably lost, then. "I'll say twenty."

Draco smiled. That was the picture in the Prophet the next day, but of course they were known to be partners, so nobody made much of it.

***

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Draco grumbled.

"I'm very persuasive," Harry said. In addition to the Invisibility Hut, he'd also put up a silencing charm this time, and Draco had raised wards—they only needed observe tonight, and Draco was still feeling overprotective. "And it's only one night."

"One very boring night," Draco said. "The shopkeepers warned off all their regular customers, so no chance of seeing any assignations with hags."

"Small mercies," Harry said. Draco smirked.

Below them, the street was deserted. Their balcony perch had a good view and an easy escape route into Diagon Alley, which Draco had demanded. Really they were only a minute's run from Harry's flat, which had some of the best protection spells available, courtesy of the Ministry and, more importantly, the Hogwarts staff. 

Harry leaned into Draco's side. "No sex tonight," Draco said. 

Harry sighed. "Even if we get done early?"

"You're pregnant," Draco said.

"Yeah, and you've locked me out for a month," Harry said.

"Because you're pregnant."

"You're not going to get me _more_ pregnant."

The corner of Draco's mouth twitched up. "It would be unseemly."

"Most straight couples still have sex when the woman's pregnant."

Draco turned to face him full-on. "Are we a couple now?"

Shit. Harry rubbed the back of his head. "You're at my flat almost every day now," he said. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Draco didn't look satisfied. "And you simply...changed your mind?"

"I always wanted to be a couple, Draco. You were the one who was all hot and cold about it."

"I had the family line to think about," Draco said. "Besides, even if the sex was good, I didn't necessarily think we were suited."

Harry sat straight up, away from Draco's body heat, no matter how nice it was. "And that magically changed when you got me up the duff?"

Draco looked suddenly uncomfortable. "No," he said. "I..." A trailed-off sentence from Draco; he was really disturbed, then. "I was on a date with Astoria," he said. She must have been the reason for the latest hiatus. "And she was lovely, and we were having an excellent conversation, and she said something sparklingly intelligent, and I wished she'd insulted me instead." Harry felt he ought to protest that, but at the same time he didn't want to interrupt. "And I thought...maybe it would work after all."

"So you broke up with her?"

Draco nodded.

"That's very sweet," Harry said. He leaned forward and kissed him; Draco's hand wrapped around his forearm and held on. "Does that mean I'm getting laid tonight?"

"Not on this balcony," Draco said. He smiled, quick, uncertain, and turned to look over the railing.

Luckily for Harry's libido, the graffiti artists stopped by ninety minutes later, and Harry was quite good with a camera. They Owled the film over to the Ministry for processing, then took down their spells and headed for Harry's flat.

As the latch clicked shut behind them, Harry had his hands on Draco's skin, burrowed under the hem of his jacket and shirt—it had been too bloody long. Draco's stomach was warm, almost too warm against Harry's cold fingers, and he could feel the tension as Draco tried not to pull away from the chill. His eyes were wide and dark and he pulled Harry forward, pressing their mouths together, not letting him go till Harry was breathless. Harry pushed the jacket off Draco's shoulders, then stepped back far enough that they could get their shirts off. So beautiful, the long lean lines of him, and Harry took a moment to just drink it in, knowing this time he got to touch. Then Draco pulled him forward again, hands in Harry's back pockets to press their hips together. He didn't know if Draco had been hard on the way over, but he certainly was now, pressing into Harry's thigh.

Harry grabbed Draco's waist and pushed his hips forward. Draco hissed in his ear. "Think I could make you come like this?" Harry asked, grinding.

"That's no fun," Draco said, which meant yes.

Harry slid his hands to the front of Draco's trousers and got the fastenings undone, then reached into palm Draco's cock. His fingers were still cold and Draco hissed, but he kissed him again, crushing Harry's hand between their bodies. With some effort, Harry moved his hand down, dragging against Draco's foreskin as the pads of his fingers found the soft skin of Draco's balls. Draco sighed in his ear. He stepped back and tugged with the hands in Harry's pockets, and Harry followed him that way almost to the other side of the living room before Draco took his hand to get them the rest of the way to the bedroom.

He'd been sleeping at Harry's flat for the better part of the past month, but somehow being in here with the promise of sex made everything look different: the bed, the walls, the softness of Draco's hair where it curled around his ear. "I want to see you naked on my bed right now," Harry said.

Draco stripped off his trousers and undergarments and flopped onto the bed facefirst.

Harry laughed. "Not what I meant."

Draco turned his head and smirked, then rolled over, bringing one knee up and starting to stroke himself, showing off. "Is this better?" he asked.

"Yeah." Harry licked his lips and Draco followed the motion with his eyes. Harry kicked his own trousers off and climbed onto the bed. 

Hesitantly, Draco reached over and ran his fingers over the hair on Harry's stomach. "You look the same," he said softly. Then his fingers curled around Harry's cock; Harry tilted his hips forward into the teasing grip. "This is the same, too."

"Good thing," Harry said. "I'm not sure what we'd do if I had lady parts instead."

"Hopefully call them something other than lady parts," Draco said. He pushed Harry's shoulder with his hand, then leaned forward for another kiss, rough and demanding. 

Good, but not quite what Harry wanted now. He slid down the bed and reached out to hold onto Draco's cock. "Been thinking about this," he said, before leaning forward to lick up the underside. He tilted his hand to examine his handiwork: a faint gleam in a broad stripe up the skin of Draco's cock, leftover saliva.

"Tease," Draco said. His voice was lower already, a little gravelly. "Turn around."

Harry frowned up at him, confused, and Draco rolled his eyes. "Let me do you," he said, and Harry's mind went blank as he caught on. He tried to figure out a graceful way of getting into position, but gave up and sort of crawl-hopped until his groin was in Draco's face. Draco petted Harry's stomach again for a moment, then leaned forward and sucked the head of Harry's cock into his mouth.

This was going to be fun. Difficult, if Harry remembered properly, but fun. An advantage of sex in a bed. Harry licked in short bursts around Draco's foreskin, keeping his tongue deliberately soft, as Draco took more and more of Harry's shaft into his mouth. Even more than usual Draco's cock seemed to be pointing down Harry's throat, though, and that was too good an invitation to resist. He slowly worked his lips around the head of Draco's cock.

Draco pulled off with a slightly indecent sound. "Yeah," he panted down in Harry's direction, before bringing Harry's cock back into his mouth, hand wrapped around his shaft and pressing slightly into his balls.

Harry tried to figure out how to curl his tongue to get to the spots he knew Draco liked, which were now on the wrong side of his mouth. After a few moments, he figured he'd have to find new spots because that just wasn't going to work. He slid his lips up and down, tasting, trying to keep his concentration here rather than on the bloody good things Draco was doing to him, because he was already in danger of coming and they'd hardly got started. He was going to make Draco pay for that month off, later.

Slowly Draco's hand crept around Harry's hip and into the cleft of his arse until his fingertips rested gently against his hole, but they didn't press in any further. Harry flexed his back and tried to encourage Draco to put them in, but that only withdrew his cock from Draco's mouth; Draco rubbed his fingers a little, the pads catching on wrinkled skin, and let his mouth slide down on Harry's prick.

Harry dipped his head further down Draco's cock and pressed with the flat of his tongue. He let his hand wander over Draco's balls, trying to smooth out the wrinkles—they were right in his line of vision, might as well have a little fun. Sort of tidy, Draco's balls, not a lot of extra skin, always close to his body, very round. Harry liked them a lot. He inched his mouth down, pulled off, enjoyed the ridge at the edge of Draco's cockhead against his tongue—

The hand around his shaft slid away and then Draco's lips were all the way down. Harry nearly choked. Where had he learned that? Harry tried to focus on his mouthful, tried to suck just right and—but then Draco sucked and pressed right behind Harry's balls and Harry felt orgasm slam into him, sucked out by Draco's mouth on his cock, pushed forward by his fingers. He pulled off Draco's cock before he did something ill-advised with his teeth. Draco's tongue twitched just a little, like he wasn't quite prepared, which just made Harry spasm again. He rolled his hips gently backwards and Draco let him go, licking around the head of Harry's cock as he slipped out.

"Oh fuck," Harry said. "What was that?"

"Better angle," Draco said, his voice cracked like hell. Harry saved the memory of that tone for later. Jesus.

"Right," Harry said. He leaned forward again and slipped Draco's cock back into his mouth. He tried to go down further, to reciprocate, but he wasn't able to do much before his gag reflex kicked in. Draco moaned a little above him at that, but combined with the touch of nausea he still got in the evening, Harry thought it probably wasn't wise to attempt it again. Instead he licked his palm and wrapped it around the base of Draco's cock, twisting his hand in rhythm with the movement of his mouth. 

Towards the end Draco got a bit pushy as usual, trying to buck up into Harry's mouth, but Harry just rode it out and sucked harder, and when Draco brushed his fingers against Harry's hip Harry pulled off and jacked Draco as he came, fat white droplets falling on Harry's shoulder and chest. 

"Now, why did you think we couldn't do that," Harry said fondly, and Draco narrowed his eyes and raised his hand to give Harry a two-fingered salute before he thought better of it. Harry grabbed a tissue off the bedside table and wiped Draco's come off, then curled up into Draco's chest and fell asleep.

***

The photos showed a bunch of kids in their late teens or early twenties. Couldn't settle the bet yet, then. Harry flipped through the images, trying to figure out if any of the culprits looked familiar, either from the investigation the other day or from previous cases. 

"Is Clara the youngest Auror around?" Draco asked.

Harry pondered. "I think she, Walker, and Shufflebottom all came in the same year, but there isn't anybody younger," he said.

"Right." Draco stood up. "Do you suppose she knows any of our delinquents?"

Good idea. Harry waved Draco off and went back to writing up leftover paperwork from the cursed household items case. They really needed a better name for that, just in case they ever found the criminals.

In a few minutes, Draco was back with names for two of the gang. They hauled them in the next day and the kids broke under hardly any interrogation at all, almost crying with fear that they'd been arrested—by Harry Potter!—for a little light pranking. Harry wondered what Fred and George would have done if they'd been dragged in at that age (eighteen—he owed Draco ten sickles after all). For all he knew, they had been. He wasn't sure if the twins had been the criminal mischief kind, or just the regular mischief kind. George had settled a little after...well, after. Anyway, they got the names of the other graffiti artists, collared them, and let them all go after a very public apology in the Prophet and a supervised cleanup of the damage they'd caused.

Why couldn't all cases be that easy? Well, hardly any fun in that.

***

The end of the first trimester was, Harry had learned, the traditional time to tell people one was pregnant. This was easier said than done, especially when Ron and Hermione were making silly jokes about everyone else in the restaurant. Why hadn't he done this at home? Right, because he was a coward.

"I have some news," Harry said.

Ron and Hermione smiled at each other, then at him. "We know," Hermione said.

Harry felt his eyes widen. "You—"

"You're dating Draco, yes?" she said.

"Well, yes," Harry said.

Before he could continue, Ron had punched him in the arm. "Good on you, mate," he said. "You've been making eyes at each other for years."

"Hey!" Harry said. "We certainly haven't."

"Right," Ron said sceptically. "At least you're together now."

"About that," Harry said.

Hermione frowned at him. Ron merely looked curious.

"We, um. We're not just together." Harry wished he'd thought of a way to break this news without sounding like an idiot. But then, he always did his best work under pressure. "We're having a baby." 

The shock on both their faces was gratifying, at least—proper reaction to the news and all. The guarantee of no marriage proposals was also a bonus. "With a...surrogate? Is that what they're called?" Ron asked.

"No," Harry said. "Um." He glanced around; there was a nice buffer of tables around them, courtesy of the accommodating wait staff, so nobody was going to overhear. "I'm pregnant."

Ron looked stunned, and Hermione had the inward look she often got when she was flicking through the information stored inside her head. Harry was thankful they knew him well enough to realise he wasn't joking now. "Male pregnancy," she said. "I'd heard there was a case."

Harry turned red. "Confidentiality—"

"I didn't know who, obviously," she said. "And I've been hired to do some research so I suppose I'm included in the confidentiality clause. Did you know you're the first one in forty years?"

"I heard," Harry said.

Ron was openly staring at Harry's stomach. "You don't look—"

"Ten weeks, more or less," Harry said. "Lots more to go."

"The storeroom," Ron said. "Wasn't it?"

"Yeah, we think so."

"Percy has to reopen the case!" He was leaning forward in his seat, excited. "I mean, they got you sprogged up—"

"Draco had something to do with it," Harry said. 

Ron made a face. "Right, anyway. We just need to—"

"Don't tell Percy. Or anybody. I don't want anyone else to know yet," Harry said. "I want to, you know, keep working. Not let this interfere."

"What do the Healers say?" Hermione asked.

"As long as I feel that I can, I should be fine," Harry said.

Suddenly, she grinned. "You always wanted a family," she said. "I'm really very happy for you, Harry."

"Yeah," Ron said. "So, are you and Draco getting married?"

Harry looked at Hermione. "Is single parenting entirely unheard of in the wizarding world? Because that was Draco's first reaction, too."

"I can't think of any," Hermione said. "At least none that aren't widows."

"Single parents? Not if you can help it. Do I need to kick Draco's arse to get him to marry you? I'd enjoy it," Ron said.

Harry smiled. "I know you would," he said. "But no. We're...waiting and seeing. We've only really been dating a few weeks." Hermione's eyebrows went up and Ron looked like he'd swallowed a frog. Right, that was probably more information than they wanted. "He's going to be involved," Harry added hastily. "Just...we're not sure about permanent yet."

"You're going to have a kid together," Ron said. "What's more permanent than that?"

"Ron," Hermione said, warning in her voice, and he subsided. "Again, we're very happy for you, Harry, and thank you for letting us know."

"Of course I'd let you know," Harry said. "How could I leave you out?" They all smiled at each other: the three of them, perfectly balanced as always.

***

Draco came over to Harry's apartment completely sloshed that night—he'd been telling Pansy as Harry told Ron and Hermione. After the conversation earlier Harry was wondering if they should have told their friends together. At the same time, it was such strange news that he was glad he didn't also have to navigate Draco figuring out how to behave around Ron and Hermione as Harry's boyfriend.

Harry was already lying in bed, so Draco changed into his pyjamas a little unsteadily and then dropped onto the mattress. 

"You should get some water," Harry said.

"Already did," Draco said. 

"I'm not going to get up in the middle of the night and get you some," Harry said. "Pregnant."

"Yes," Draco said. He rolled over and looked at Harry. "Pansy thinks I'm not being nice enough to you. Nice!"

Harry grinned at the thought of that conversation. "I knew what I was getting into. The sex is a pretty good distraction, by the way."

"Maybe tomorrow."

Too right, Draco probably couldn't even get it up tonight with the amount of alcohol in his bloodstream. "Ron and Hermione were very happy," Harry said. "They'd even figured out we were dating."

"It's obvious to the Weasel?" Draco said. The nickname seemed to be settled habit, but at least Ron didn't take it seriously any more—they'd saved each others' arses often enough on the job. "Maybe Percy said something. I don't know how we have three of seven in the same department. Nepotism."

He was just rambling, but—what? "What does Percy know?"

"Fraternisation rules," Draco said, waving a hand. His eyes were totally closed; tomorrow at work would be entertaining. Harry made a mental note to drop something loud outside Pansy's office to see if she was suffering the same condition. "Had to notify."

"Ridiculous," Harry said. "Why do they care?"

Draco shrugged. "Probably something anti-Death Eater. Known associates." He yawned. "Or the usual no-family-members-in-danger-together issue."

A snafu Harry hadn't anticipated. "Will they break our partnership up when they know about the baby?"

"Probably." Great. "And until then we should stay out of danger," Draco continued. "Baby very important."

"Me, I'm just chopped liver," Harry said.

"Yes, yes, you can take care of yourself, as you like to tell me whenever I make the slightest comment about the integrity of your skin," Draco said. Harry was mildly impressed by his pronunciation abilities. "But there are only so many safe jobs going around."

"Safe jobs?" Oh. He hadn't understood that before. "You pulled strings to get us the easy case," he said accusingly.

"No, no," Draco said. "I just told Percy you were under the weather due to the curse in the storeroom and could we please not be assigned to something that required your fast reflexes."

"So you brought Percy in. Much better."

Draco cracked an eye at Harry's tone of voice. "But look how nice it was," he said.

"Boring. I'm considering making you sleep in the spare room."

"I'm too heavy to move."

"Too right," Harry said. Though he didn't, in the end, get Draco that glass of water, no matter how pitiful he was when he begged.


	4. Chapter 4

Draco managed to get them a spot at the front of the meeting room this time, so they had a good view of the chalkboard. There was a list of potions ingredients on the board—restricted potions ingredients, Harry realised.

Percy cleared his throat. "Some of our black market contacts have reported an increase in potions using these ingredients, as well as an uptick in the availability of raw erumpent horn and ashwinder eggs." He pointed at those items on the list. "These ingredients are restricted for a reason and we need to know where they're coming from.

"These three"—he indicated the erumpent horn, plus two other ingredients Harry wasn't immediately familiar with—"cannot be found naturally in the UK, so they must be imported. The others are naturally occurring, but are now available in greater quantities than British sources should produce. We think they're being imported along with the others." Percy shoved his spectacles up his nose. "We also don't know if the potions actually work yet. Weasley, Angel, we'd like to you try to get hold of some of them for testing."

Ron shot a glance at Harry and smiled—for once not assigned with Ginny.

"Any potion effects we should be aware of?" Danielfield said. 

"Hmm." Percy picked up a piece of parchment and scribbled the names of several potions on the board. "Mostly illegal interpersonal spells, love potions and minor hexes. This one can start fires, though, and this one explodes."

"So, yes," Ginny said.

Percy nodded. "Potter, Malfoy, I want you to make contact with the Knockturn Alley potions suppliers and see if you can find anything—they're feeling generous towards you after your recent work. Parkinson, Danielfield, black market contacts. Weasley, Fawcett, you're on newspaper duty—check the small ads for anything suspicious. Smith, Redfern, Muggle customs." Rhonwen made a face. "That leaves Khan and Prewett for Wizarding customs. Any questions?"

"Are there any related ingredients we should be checking for?" Fawcett asked. "Or is this the complete list?"

"Research is working on a list of similar items and other possible potions," Percy said. "You should have it in a few days."

"Thanks."

With no more questions, Percy dismissed them.

***

On the couch, eating supper. Harry was mostly over the morning sickness but their usual curry was a bit too much for him, so they'd opted for sandwiches. He was leaning back, chewing the last annoying bit of bread with no salad or meat left, when Draco's eyes cut over and widened.

"Your top trouser button is undone," he said.

Harry chewed and swallowed. "Couldn't get it closed this morning," he said as calmly as he could.

Draco was staring. "Really?" he said.

"Not much," Harry said. "Looks like I had a big lunch."

"Strip," Draco said. He grinned. "I want to see you."

Harry rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt off. Trousers down—he left the pants on, as they rode low enough to reveal the slight swelling. "Not much," he said again.

Draco kissed him right below the navel and then grabbed his hips. "I like this more than I thought I would," he said, which Harry had rather figured out. "Not sure how I'll feel when you're blown up like a balloon, but this is nice."

"Bit possessive?" Harry said, amused. Draco was still sort of inspecting him. "I'll have to remember this."

Draco's smile was gone, though, and Harry watched him, a little puzzled. "We have to tell Percy," Draco said finally.

Harry shook his head. "I'm not showing yet through the robes—they're loose. There's no reason to—"

"We're supposed to go to Knockturn Alley potions merchants tomorrow," Draco said. "I was worried already but now it's—well."

"It's what?"

"More certain," Draco said. His fingers were rubbing unconsciously along Harry's hipbones, soothing. "And more dangerous."

"I'm not in any more danger than I was twelve hours ago," Harry said.

"Now it _feels_ different," Draco said. Which Harry supposed he couldn't argue with.

"All right." He sighed. "We'll tell Percy. But nobody else!"

Draco gave him the kind of crooked half-smile he only did when they were alone. It wasn't worth the boredom Harry was going to get for the next few months, but it was something. "So you'll have to get new trousers," he said, pulling Harry down onto the couch. "I think I owe you something for going through all that."

"Yeah, this is all your fault," Harry said.

Draco made it up to him.

***

In the end, Harry had Dr McLaughlin write a letter to Percy so he wouldn't have to try to explain it himself.

"You should have told me immediately," Percy said as soon as he'd finished reading it. "We need to split up the partnership. Harry, you're off of field work."

"Oh," Harry said, surprised. He'd thought they'd have a little more time together, or that Percy would at least negotiate.

"Wait," Draco said. "What if we both stay on office work until the baby's born? I'd rather not be put in any danger, either."

"And it would delay questions. Nobody's expecting us to split up, so—"

Percy narrowed his eyes at them. "It's very unorthodox."

"This way," Draco said, "you can spend some time thinking about how best to rearrange the partnerships, rather than having to make a decision right now."

Percy shifted his eyes to the back of the room and thought. Score one for Slytherins—appeal to Percy's perfectionism.

"You know Draco's good at sorting through records," Harry said. "If I'm going to be in the office anyway, and he's better there, it works out well for everyone."

"And we work well as a team," Draco said. "Do you want to split us up before you have to?"

"No," Percy said after a pause. "But the rules are very clear. I understand your desire for secrecy, however, and I believe I have a satisfactory solution."

Harry raised his eyebrows politely. 

"It's about time for our trainee members to move into real work," he said, "so—"

"I get Abbott," Harry said.

Draco glared at him nastily.

"She does her best work in the office," Percy said. "You're more of a fieldwork operative."

"Draco's better with the paperwork, too, but we get a lot done," Harry said. "Lots of partnerships have complementary natures like that."

"And many don't," Draco said. "Nero and Rhonwen, for example, are very similar."

"I claimed her first," Harry said. He'd act like a five-year-old if it would save him from Shufflebottom, who was the other likely promotion.

"All right," Percy said. Draco shot Harry another death glare. "It will take a week or so to clear a full office, however," he said, "so for now you two will continue to share." He looked at them over the top of his glasses; Harry wondered if it was a move deliberately lifted from Dumbledore. "Is that enough time to divide your possessions?"

Harry looked at Draco. Draco nodded.

"Thank you," Harry added. He didn't think it would really take a week to find an empty office, but Percy would never admit to sentimentality.

"What about our current assignment?" Draco said. "We can't go into Knockturn." 

"Indeed." Percy thought. "Switch with Weasley and Fawcett," he said. "We'll put you two on the same tasks for now whilst you acclimate to your new partners."

They all shook hands and left Percy's office—Percy to tell Ron and Fawcett the news, Harry and Draco to collect their new partners and start combing the small ads.

***

"Here's one," Harry said.

Draco looked up.

Harry cleared his throat. "'I'm a witch with a love of danger. You're a male centaur dedicated to your own species...but with a forbidden taste for human bodies.'"

Draco grinned. "Stop making fun of straight women's fantasies," he said.

"Okay," Harry said. He read down. "40yo SGM seeks 20-30yo GM for occasional 'booty call.'"

"Ugh," Draco said. "Twenty year age gap—perhaps when you're 90 and 110."

"Here. '120yo m seeks 100+ m, enjoys Quidditch Talk wireless show, short walks, wine, good conversation.' You know, it's strange that wizarding culture can't stand single parents and is totally fine with homosexuality."

"What do those have to do with each other?"

Harry blinked at him. "Right."

"Are they linked for Muggles?"

"The prejudices occur together, that's for bloody certain."

"How odd," Draco said. "Here's somebody offering Ashwinder eggs, I think. Or 'hot fresh eggs.'"

Harry groaned. "Can't they come up with better code words?"

Draco tapped the end of his quill against his mouth, distracting Harry. "Maybe it is just food. Here's the same response number for somebody selling fresh-cured bacon."

"Or maybe that's a red herring."

"I'll write it down and have Pansy check it out."

"Yeah." Harry tried to read the goods section, but the personals were just too funny. "'I Jane. You Tarzan. Meet in forest with ropes.'" 

"Who's Tarzan?" 

"That's another one for the list." 

"We watch too much 'telly' already," Draco said with audible quotation marks.

"It's relaxing, and unlike chess we can cuddle."

"We can cuddle during chess," Draco said. "You just don't like it because I win."

"If lies make you feel better, you're welcome to them."

"'I'm Severus Snape, you're Harry Potter. Let's really give Dumbledore a show. Glasses a must.'"

"Oh God." 

***

The problem with a nice, civil, real date at a real restaurant was that by the time the starter arrived Harry already wanted to bend Draco over the table, and they still had mains and pudding to get through. And Draco really liked his sweets, and it was his birthday, so Harry couldn't even suggest they skip it.

Harry managed to remain decorous all the way back to his flat, and even inside until they made it to the bedroom, but as soon as Draco got close enough to the bed Harry tackled him.

Draco laughed and tangled his fingers in Harry's hair. Harry kissed the smile off his face, tasted the wine in his mouth, felt the fluttering of his chest as he breathed. "Wanted to take you in the restaurant," he said. "Wanted to grab the butter and push you over—"

"I bet the waitress would've liked the show," Draco said.

Harry kissed him again.

"Still want to fuck me?" Draco said, later. "Because you're wearing too many clothes."

"So are you."

"So get off."

"...Trying."

Draco hit him fondly on the back of the head, and Harry kissed him one more time before standing up. He tossed his robes and undid his braces and tore off his shirt and—oh, Draco was giving him a show. Slowly pushing each button through its hole with slender fingers, pulling the front of his shirt open a little at a time to reveal more ivory chest and blond hair. 

A few more buttons and Draco had the shirt open, pushing it to the side to frame his long lean torso, the hair clustering thickly on his chest then narrowing to draw a line down under the waist of his trousers, with a lighter sprinkling spread more thinly over his abdomen. He slipped the trouser buttons open too, then drew out his cock and stroked slowly up and down. 

"Like what you see?" he asked.

"You know I do," Harry said. He pushed his trousers and boxers down and knelt on the edge of the bed. "Can I join?"

"Hmm." Draco pushed his hair out of his face and stroked a few more times, lazily. "I don't know. I'm having fun all by myself."

"Then please, don't let me stop you." Harry stretched out next to him and watched Draco rub one finger carefully around his nipple. Slowly, the shaft of his cock disappeared into his fist, then reappeared again. He turned to look at Harry's face and kept the eye contact as he slowly jerked himself off. Harry reached down to run one finger up his own cock. "This isn't really what I had in mind for tonight," he said.

"Oh?" Draco pushed his chest up into his finger. Bloody tease. "You had something in mind?"

"Plowing you into the mattress sound good?"

Draco turned his eyes back to the ceiling. "If you insist."

"I do," Harry said solemnly.

Draco bit his lip.

Harry shifted towards him on the bed and Draco tilted his own body slightly, maybe subconsciously, in Harry's direction. Two could play at this game, though, so Harry brought his hand over, let it hover just above Draco's skin as it ran down along Draco's body, then pulled back and sat up. "Lube," he said and disappeared into the bathroom.

"You haven't heard of _Accio_?" Draco said behind him, annoyed.

He had. This was more fun. He popped open the lid of the spare lube and smeared the index and middle fingers of his left hand, then closed the tube and walked back into the bedroom, doing his best to hide his preparations. Draco had discarded the rest of his clothes and was lying against the pillows now, thighs canted apart, still stroking himself. Harry crawled up onto the bed and kissed Draco's stomach down the line of hair to his cock, feeling the quiver of muscle beneath his lips. He licked Draco's fingers, skin and a hint of oregano and caramel from dinner. Draco laughed and moved his hand away so Harry could get his tongue onto more urgent parts of his anatomy, spreading his legs further so Harry could fit in between them. Perfect. He moved his mouth to engulf the head of Draco's cock, and as he did, he reached down and rubbed his two wet fingers against Draco's hole.

Draco moaned and thrust up, but Harry was ready for that; he flattened his tongue and let the movement push more of Draco's cock into his mouth, shifting his fingers so they stayed pressed against Draco's body. Draco let out a large breath and fell back down to the bed. "Sneaky," he said, a little breathless. Harry pressed his fingers deeper and started sucking. He thrust his hand, searching, until Draco moaned and shifted. Then he hit the spot again.

"You're an evil genius," Draco panted. Harry nodded and was rewarded with a choked groan.

He pulled back and examined Draco's cock. Red and fully hard now, shiny with spit. Lovely. "Another finger?" he asked.

"Nice of you to ask."

"I could take them out."

"Three is fine," Draco said quickly.

He spread a little more lube onto his fingers and slipped them inside. Bit of a tight fit, they hadn't done this much lately and Draco hardly at all. Draco didn't seem to mind, though. He reached down and pointed his cock at Harry's mouth. Since he asked so nicely— Harry sucked him down again.

Draco's hand moved into his hair, just holding on, not directing. Pleasant. Harry thrust his fingers and mostly stayed in one place on Draco's cock, not wanting to escalate things quite yet. It didn't take much to open Draco up; before long his fingers were sliding easily and Draco was pushing back against the motion.

Harry pulled his fingers out and Draco grunted. He really should have slicked his cock up first, but it was more fun making Draco come apart. He stroked more lube up and down his shaft till his hand slid easily. At the head of the bed, Draco was leaning against the headboard, one hand thrown up and wrapped around the edge to brace himself; he was flushed halfway down his chest, panting. Harry lined himself up and looked up at Draco's face, held his gaze as he pushed slowly inside, dragging one of Draco's legs up to wrap around his waist. Felt good, of course, but even better was Draco's face: mouth fallen open, bottom lip bitten red. He was tight, but he knew how to move into it, shifting as Harry's cock slipped further inside. "Good?" Harry bit out, and Draco nodded. Well, then. Harry pulled out a bit and pushed back in, and there it was—all the way, warmth wrapped around his cock root to tip. "Beautiful," he whispered, and Draco's cheeks coloured even more red, so he said it again.

"Move," Draco said, voice tight. Harry pulled back and pushed in and he could see the reaction in Draco's body, a wave of tense-relax moving from his lower stomach up to his shoulders. Draco shifted up on the pillows and reached out to run his fingers along Harry's cheek, easy. Harry wrapped his wet hand around Draco's dick and pulled as he thrust, feeling the slight cling as he pulled out, the softness as he pushed in.

"Yeah," Draco breathed out.

Harry tried moving a little faster and Draco's hands clenched and relaxed in the sheets, but he rode it, shifting to meet Harry's movements. He pushed his hips forward hard and Draco grunted; he paused but Draco looked up at him, eyes wild, and growled, "Do it again." 

Well, then. Harry snapped his hips back and forth, fast, and Draco started making the most glorious noises, hands reaching for Harry's sides and then falling back to the bed. Harry held Draco's hip and grabbed him around the chest and rolled them so Draco was on top. "Come on, fuck yourself on me."

"Yes," Draco grunted. He sat up and ground down and Harry's world narrowed to the clench around his cock, the flesh between his fingers. Draco rose up again, down, steadying himself by grabbing the headboard; Harry held his arse with the other hand, helping his balance. He was really riding Harry now, fast, Harry's cock slipping up into his perfect arse and then sliding back out, muscles gripping him as Draco rose up. 

Harry's toes curled but, God, he couldn't come yet. Too fast. He massaged Draco's balls, hearing a groan above him. "Want to fill your arse with my come, want to watch it leaking out of you," he said, suddenly feeling the deep need of it, of claiming Draco. He moved his hand back up to Draco's cock and gripped it tightly, stoked it just how he knew Draco liked. 

Draco made a high-pitched broken sound and shot all over Harry's stomach—up to his nipples, even, fuck. He tensed, mouth open, and Harry shoved up into him a few more times before it was all too much and he came, feeling like it was ripped from his balls. He rolled and Draco fell onto the bed, breathing hard, totally out of it. He slipped his cock out and Draco frowned a little, but didn't move.

"Accio," Harry whispered, and a wet flannel flew in from the bathroom. He wiped up his chest and cock and sent it back.

Draco opened his eyes, cool and grey in his red hectic face. "I love your pregnancy hormones."

Harry laughed. He still couldn't catch his breath.

Draco draped an arm over Harry's chest and they both lay still for a few minutes, relaxing, coming down. Then Draco popped his head back up. "I'm going to go grab a beer, do you want something?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Is there any pumpkin juice?"

Draco hauled himself up. "It's your kitchen," he said. "Come have a look."

"All right." Harry, still half-boneless, let himself be pulled up and followed Draco into the kitchen. There was, indeed, a little drip of white along the bottom curve of Draco's arse; Harry Accio'd the flannel again.

***

His stomach was getting to be quite a problem. Harry was pretty sure it was already noticeable and everybody was being polite on the assumption that he'd let himself go now that he and Draco were officially an item. (Or not officially—they hadn't said anything—but Pansy reported that it was common gossip, and the musical-chairs partners looked suspicious.)

The door didn't exactly slam behind Ginny, but the sound was from the same family. "You can tell two of my brothers but not me, you prats?" she said. Harry blushed and looked down, and Ginny laughed. "No apology necessary. But you can name it after me in payment for my silence."

"Ginevrius?" Draco suggested. Technically he was in a different office now, but Clara switched with him whenever the four of them didn't urgently need to work as partners. Harry wondered what kind of hell he was in for when she got around to paying him back for all those hours with Shufflebottom.

Ginny shuddered. "Ugh. Maybe not if it's a boy."

"It's a boy," Harry said, "so—sorry, but no."

She turned her head fast and stared at him in astonishment. "You already know?"

"We asked," Draco said. He'd been coming to the appointments lately. Harry was still a little disturbed by how happy the Healers were about that.

"You didn't want it to be a surprise?"

"I think getting up the duff was enough of a surprise for one lifetime," Harry said. Draco grinned at him.

"Uh, okay," Ginny said. "I guess that makes the gift buying easier."

Draco sighed. "This is why I didn't think we should tell anyone."

"What is?"

"He wanted a bunch of green gifts." Harry grinned. "Still on about house rivalries, you know."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, and you definitely don't have red and gold striped bedsheets," he said.

"That's just good taste."

Draco scoffed.

Ginny leaned up against the desk. "I had an actual purpose for coming here, which was to tell you that we caught one of the brewers red-handed."

"Excellent!" Harry said. 

"Well, blue-handed," Ginny said, "if we're being precise."

"Who's doing the questioning?" Draco said.

"Danielfield."

"Oh," Harry said. Pansy was the best interrogator they had, and he'd have gone to watch if it had been her. "You'll let us know what happens?"

"Sure," Ginny said. "Or you could wait for the briefing like a normal person."

"Then there are no normal people in this department," Draco said.

"True!" Ginny grinned at them again as she left. She even had the decency not to check out Harry's belly.

***

Draco had wonderful, wonderful fingers. Especially when he decided to massage Harry's feet. There were benefits to this whole pregnancy thing, even if it did mean a small alien life form swimming about in parts of his anatomy he shouldn't bloody well have.

As he found the really sore spot near Harry's heel, Draco said, "I've been thinking."

"Hmm?" Harry didn't bother to look up from where his head was resting on the arm of the sofa. 

There was a pause before Draco answered. "Maybe I should move in," he said.

That deserved a look. Harry opened his eyes. "Move in?"

"Yes." Draco was looking at the far wall. "Or you could move in with me, but given how much time I've been spending here, I'd hate to put my hard-won tolerance for your décor to waste."

"I don't know," Harry said. "That's a big step—"

"We're going to have a child in less than five months," Draco said. "This is a small step, comparatively. Minuscule. The kind of step _you_ take every day, in fact."

Harry poked Draco's arm with his toes. "Like you can talk, shrimp."

"Or are you still under the impression we're not compatible?" It wasn't strictly fair for Draco to push his fingers right into the sore spot when he said that, but Jesus, Harry'd had orgasms that were less satisfying. 

"We're compatible," Harry said when he could think again. "Plus I like the regular sex."

"The regular sex not in the office?"

"The regular sex with no expiration date," Harry said.

"Ah." Draco's fingers moved further up his foot. "Yes, that's true."

"Okay," Harry said.

Finally Draco turned to look at him. "Yes?"

"Yeah," Harry said.

"Not all at once," Draco said after a pause. "But I can bring some of my things by on Saturday."

"Saturday, then," Harry said. 

Draco nodded and rubbed his knuckles up and down Harry's arch, his usual end-of-massage signal. "I don't suppose I could get one of these for being kind enough not to require you to redecorate?"

Harry laughed. "Sure."

Draco turned and swung his feet towards him. Harry put his thumbs to work.

***

Eventually, the increased buzzing in the hallway was too much for Harry. He got up and poked his head out the door. Khan and Prewett were talking with Pansy and Danielfield, Percy walking up briskly to join them. A quick conference and the four of them split. Pansy saw Harry and detoured past the office.

"We've found the entry point," she said.

"Yeah?" Harry asked, a little disappointed. It was far more fun when _he_ got to find the bad guys and take them out.

"Yes," Pansy said. She leaned against the door but didn't come in—time sensitive, then. Draco finished marking something in the Quibbler and looked up. "Through Muggle shipping, obviously, packed in with frozen fish. We haven't found the entire chain yet, but we know who's taking the deliveries and removing the ingredients, so it shouldn't be long before we get the whole network. Khan had the shipment delayed when we found the evidence, but the pickup's scheduled for half an hour."

Draco nodded. "Congratulations."

"Do you need extra hands?" Harry asked.

Twin glares. An odd thing, when one was a tall busty brunette and one was the skinny runt of a blond he was somehow dating, but it was true. "You are not allowed on field work," Draco said.

"There was a memo," Pansy said.

Harry frowned. "A memo?"

"Few days ago." Pansy shrugged. "Just saying that you and Abbot aren't available for excursions. Though I think everyone's going to figure it out soon. Getting a bit obvious there, Potter, I'd think you were growing twins."

"I was skinny to begin with!" Harry said. Pansy laughed at him. "But I meant Draco and Shufflebottom could go," he said. "We've been holed up in here for weeks. At least one of us can be having fun."

Draco didn't say anything, but his eyes lit up. As much as Harry knew he loved the paperwork, a change of pace was nice for anyone.

"I'll check with Percy," Pansy said. She disappeared out into the hallway. Draco gave Harry a rare real smile, and saved the smirk for Pansy when she came back to tell him he could come.

***

Retelling the sting—especially the detailed description of the look on the man's face when an entire squad of Aurors had come bursting through the door just as he opened the secret compartment—took up most of the time they needed to finish packing Draco's apartment.

"Guess we're really doing this," Harry said.

"You noticed," Draco said. He shrank the last armchair into the crate labelled "Storage." He'd convinced Harry to replace the living room set with Draco's own, but there was still an extra apartment's worth of furniture between them and Harry wasn't quite ready to let it go yet.

Harry surveyed the room critically. It ought to look odd to him, he supposed, but he'd never really spent time here: by the time they were socializing outside of work, they'd mostly been dealing with Harry's pregnancy, so they'd spent most of the time at his apartment. So this looked like the apartment of a distant friend he'd visited a few times. 

"That's everything," Draco said, clearly exasperated with Harry's inspection. He was right; if something had been out of place he'd have noticed it long before Harry did. "To yours?"

"Ours," Harry said. Harry finished putting the box of miniaturised clothing into Draco's knapsack and closed the top. "Yeah, let's go."

The door closing behind them didn't feel final, either. Harry wondered when their relationship would start feeling scary rather than perfectly right.


	5. Chapter 5

"None of my robes fit!"

Draco sighed from the closet. "You can borrow one of my open fronts," he said. "They're perfectly respectable."

"I can't have dinner with your parents wearing your clothing!"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think they know we're sleeping together," Draco said.

Harry frowned. "Makes me look like a kept man."

"You are a kept man. I'm keeping you."

Harry looked at the closet—Draco tended to go for the big sweeping romantic announcements, not the little everyday ones. But his head was still buried amongst his full-length robes, so maybe he hadn't meant it that way. "That's sweet," Harry said. Draco gave him a two-finger salute without looking. "Also, if I wear the open fronts, the photographers are going to have a field day."

"Again, not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think your choice of robes will make much difference."

"You're a bundle of sunshine today."

"You haven't met my parents lately. They got worse."

Harry had figured as much, since he hadn't yet been allowed to meet them. Draco emerged from the closet with his choice—a long sweeping black robe with pale grey trim at the neck and cuffs and a row of jade buttons down the front. He pulled it on over his head, glanced in the mirror, saw his hair, and started to head for the bathroom.

"Come here a moment," Harry said.

Draco diverted without question and came over to where Harry was standing. "My open blue robes," he said, "white shirt, black trousers."

"No," Harry said. He grabbed Draco's hand and pressed it to the side of his stomach where the baby was kicking.

"Ah," Draco said. He held still, smile half-forgotten on his face. 

Harry gave him about thirty seconds, then said, "Okay, go fix your hair." Draco pulled his hand back, smirked at Harry, and walked off. The only problem with a kicking baby as a distraction was that it wouldn't work for more than a few months, but Harry was going to use it whilst he could.

"It's very odd that you have an extra person in there," Draco called from the bathroom.

"Try it sometime and then tell me what's odd," Harry yelled back. He went to the closet and took out Draco's blue robe, along with one of the sets of shirts and trousers he'd had specially made by Draco's very discreet long-term family tailor. Suddenly he had a thought. "Draco, have you seen _Alien_?"

"What's that?"

"I have a plan for film night," Harry said.

"All right," Draco said, clearly already bored.

The restaurant was small and tasteful, and meals there probably cost more than Harry would ever choose to spend on food—he wasn't sure, the menu had no prices (and no choices). Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were already seated in icy glamour when Harry and Draco arrived. "Mr Potter, a pleasure," Narcissa said. Lucius smiled and inclined his head.

Draco pulled out Harry's chair, which Harry found both hilarious and a little insulting. But he sat and smiled because he was going to be on his best behaviour, dammit. "It's lovely to see you both again," he said.

He hadn't seen them since the end of the war. He couldn't say he was sorry.

"Indeed." Lucius made a glancing gesture with his hand and a waiter appeared at the table to pour wine for Draco and sparkling water for Harry.

"We were so pleased when Draco told us your news," Narcissa said, smiling pleasantly vulpine. "We're only sorry we haven't found the time to speak to you until now."

"I'm sure you're both very busy," Harry said.

"Not at all," Lucius said smoothly. 

"And of course we're so pleased you're having a boy," Narcissa said. "We have many heirlooms that are only appropriate for the male line." Good thing she didn't say that near Pansy, Harry thought. "Lucius's great-great-great-great-grandfather's cufflinks, for example. Draco has a bit too much of the Black skin tone to wear them properly, but perhaps they will suit your son." 

Across the table, Draco rolled his eyes. 

"Thank you very much," Harry said.

"There's a tiara for my wife," Draco said. "I bet you'd look lovely in it."

"You think I can get my hair to lie flat long enough for a tiara?" Harry grinned.

"The emeralds would set off your eyes nicely," Lucius said. 

Harry couldn't tell if he was joking. "I'm afraid I don't have many opportunities to dress up, and once the baby's born, between him and the job, that will only get worse."

"Ah, yes. Draco mentioned you intend to continue working after the birth of your child," Narcissa said.

Now they were getting down to business. "Draco and I are both planning on taking some time off, but yes, I will go back to work when I can. We are looking into child care options." Half their coworkers thought they should bring the baby in and let whoever was free take care of him. All Harry had to do was imagine Rhonwen and Nero left alone with his child to know that would never work. Although, if he and Draco _did_ let that happen, by the time the kid went off to Hogwarts there would probably be nothing that could shock him.

Narcissa sighed delicately. "I know you were raised by your...relatives," she said, "but it is traditional for the mother to stay at home with a child for a few years, at least."

"I'm not exactly the mother," Harry said.

Lucius raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. It was like eating supper with evil but well-mannered statues. "I suppose this is not enough for you to consider a change in careers," he said to Draco. 

"No, Father." 

"It's just so dangerous," Narcissa said, "and really, you ought to be in politics."

"Doing well as an Auror will help a political career," Draco said. Harry noted he didn't say _his_ political career in particular.

"No reason for you to be in the Investigations unit, however," Lucius said. Harry could recognise a long-standing argument when he heard one. "Direct anti-Dark Wizard activity would do more to help your image, and might perhaps be worth the risk."

A waiter appeared next to the table; Harry would have suspected Apparition except for the lack of the accompanying clap of displaced air. She set down a small dish of strange-looking red tarts and disappeared rapidly. Harry took one and began to chew: beets.

"I trust my supervisors to know where I will be most useful," Draco said, "which is Investigations. Making waves in the Ministry certainly would not help a political career. And we're regarded highly, as you can see by the number of war heroes I am surrounded by."

Narcissa said, "Yes, but some of them are—"

Harry bristled and Draco, seeing his face, jumped in. "In fact, we just caught the base link of a smuggling ring," Draco said. "It should be in the papers tomorrow."

"If it's not bumped by me," Harry said. They'd attracted a number of stares on their way into the restaurant—Harry had avoided going out for the last month or so, but at this point he was umistakably pregnant.

"I'm sure the public will be very happy for you," Narcissa said. She said "public" the way many people said "pets." "Draco, I brought some sketches Marianna made for the nursery." She handed over a piece of parchment; Harry leaned over to look at it.

"The dimensions are a bit large for the space we have," Harry said, which was an understatement.

"No, no, dear, this is for the manor," Narcissa said. "You will be coming to visit us?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said to what he had a feeling wasn't really a question.

"When we can be spared from work," Draco said. 

Lucius cleared his throat. "You may Floo in, of course, for a short visit."

"We're not hooked up to the Floo network," Draco said.

Lucius and Narcissa both looked faintly startled.

"I don't like to be so easily discoverable," Harry said. That got another surprised look and a nod from both of them, like this was a strategy they could respect. Good. Last thing he needed was...did they count as in-laws?...in-laws wanting to get rid of him.

"Here, Harry, try some of this," Narcissa said. She passed across a plate that had appeared next to her arm just before she started speaking. Harry felt rather as if he'd passed some sort of test.

***

Harry idly scanned through more small ads in the Prophet. They still hadn't tracked down the link between the importer and the brewers; he was hoping to find something soon so they could close out the case.

He glanced up at Draco, who'd taken up residence in the squashy chair. Something about Shufflebottom and music, Harry hadn't really bothered to follow it; it wasn't like they needed excuses to drift into each other's offices. But Draco was staring at a piece of parchment, not moving, quill half-falling from his fingers. "Draco?" Harry said softly.

Across the desks, Clara looked up.

"I found it," Draco said.

"Found what?"

He looked up, eyes still distant. "I found out how they did it," he said. "The cursed objects."

"What?" Harry dropped the newspaper and nearly leaped over to the chair. Clara followed. "How? What did we miss?"

"It wasn't in the deliveries at all," he said. He pointed to the parchment: a sketch of the layout of the cute-animal shop. "Look where the toast rack was. In this corner, hidden from the door by the display of notecards here, hidden from the till by the shelving."

Harry nodded. "I thought it was lucky the shopkeeper moved the teapots because otherwise nobody would have seen the victim collapse. Except that wasn't right, because if the shopkeeper hadn't moved it, it wouldn't have triggered until she got home."

"Right," Draco said. "So it was isolated. And here's where the blanket was in the shop Nero and Rhonwen visited." He pulled another piece of parchment out. "It was in this hallway between two rooms—a small one. Easier to go around this way." He traced a finger through a clearer path. "Low traffic. Hidden from the shopkeeper's eyes. Do you see?"

Harry blinked.

"They cursed the items after they were already stocked," Clara said.

"Oh. Oh shit," Harry said. "Because then they knew which ones were up front and likely to be purchased. And they didn't have to time-delay the curse on the shelf—they only had to time-delay the half that would trigger once it was separated from the shelf charm."

"All our research is useless," Draco said. "We have to look at the customers."

"I'll get Percy," Clara said. She fairly ran out of the office.

Draco looked at Harry, eyes narrowed, sweeping up his body before settling on his face. "Would you be _very_ unhappy if I killed them?" he asked seriously.

"Yes."

Draco rolled his eyes.

Percy came bursting through the door, with Clara just behind. "You found something?" he said, slightly out of breath. His tie was askew. 

"Yes," Draco said. He stood up with the parchment. "If you look at the layout of this shop..."

***

New suspects meant new CCTV footage, at least from the shops that had entrances on Muggle streets. Some of the evidence was long gone, with the seven month delay since the crimes, but some had been kept, and some had been acquired during the first phase of the investigation. 

Nobody offered to come help out this time, Harry noticed. Boredom plus vomiting was probably not the best advertisement. So he just had Clara. Even Draco was out on fieldwork with Shufflebottom. Harry tried not to be jealous.

"Ten quid on not finding anything?" Clara said.

"Even a bet can't make this interesting," Harry said gloomily. Clara laughed.

Just fuzzy grey people walking into doors and out of them. Harry was reliably informed (meaning by Hermione) that Muggles' eyes would slide away from the image of the door the same way they did from the real shops. The charms worked on human perception, not technology. 

"This is awful," Harry said after the second tape. Fast forward was helpful, but it was still about six hours a day (depending on the shop) of ordinary pedestrians in bad quality.

"Whinge away," Clara said. "You get to take a break in a couple of months."

Harry laughed. "I'm not sure a baby is exactly a break."

"It's not _this_ ," she said, with loathing.

"Yes, all right," Harry said.

Another tape.

"Do we really have to go through all of these?"

"Unless we find something," Harry said grimly.

"Can we make something up if we really need to stop?"

"No," Harry said. 

She grinned. But not for long, because they had to put in a new DVD.

***

"Orange?" Harry suggested.

"That's halfway between red and gold," Draco said darkly.

"Blue, then," Harry said. "Nobody minds Ravenclaw, right?"

"Hmm." Draco pondered. "Teal?"

"Too green."

"Really?"

"You started it," Harry said. 

"Yes, I apologise for caring about the decoration of our son's nursery," Draco said.

The hovering shop assistant looked concerned. 

"I care too. I just don't think the colour of the nursery will determine his destiny."

"Every item in _my_ nursery was green or silver," Draco said.

"And look how you turned out!" Harry said. "Shagging a Gryffindor."

"Imagine how much worse it would have been if the room had been yellow."

Harry grinned. "Blue, then?"

"Blue," Draco said in tones of doom.

Bedding was easy: blue, clouds, Snitches. They had a bit of a squabble about a bassinet versus a crib, but the shop assistant (clearly looking for commission, Harry thought) suggested they get a bassinet for the bedroom and a crib for the nursery, which meant they got to buy a red and gold bassinet, which practically made Draco break out in hives. 

"Pram?" Harry said. 

Draco tilted his head. "Green?"

"No," Harry said.

"We got a red and gold bassinet!" 

"Because you wanted it for the bedroom and that's what color the bedroom is!"

"You know," Draco said, "Transfiguration would solve this problem quite easily."

"And spend the next eleven years warring over colours? I think not."

Draco grinned toothily. "I'm sure he'll have made a choice before then," he said.

"I give up," Harry said. He grabbed a white pram with multicoloured polka dots.

"All right, all right, we can do blue!"

Harry reflected that had they gone shopping in a Muggle shop—new goal, take Draco shopping at a Muggle clothing shop, it would be good for a laugh—they'd sound right mental. Of course, they probably sounded that way now. Did other couples bicker about House rivalries when choosing nursery decorations?

Possibly, Harry decided. Or at least the ones whose original relationship was based around House rivalries.

Burping cloths were more of an issue because Draco wanted them personalised. "SJM," he said, "right?"

Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation. "We are not calling our child Scorpius."

"I'm letting you have James as the middle name!" Draco said.

"Yeah, the 'letting' bit is part of the problem," Harry said. "Also, I haven't agreed to Malfoy either."

"The Malfoy name will open doors," Draco began.

"And Potter won't?"

"Different doors," Draco allowed. "But with the inheritance rights in the Malfoy family, would you not prefer to make things easy and just use my name?"

"No."

"Anyway," Draco said, "as my mother said, the child traditionally takes the father's name."

"This child has two fathers."

"You're clearly the mother," Draco said, smiling. He poked Harry's belly.

" _You're_ a mother," Harry said under his breath. Draco frowned. "Anyway, why are we limiting ourselves to strict heterosexual roles? Neither of us has to be the mother."

"If you say so," Draco said. 

"I do," Harry said.

"Hmm." Draco turned the burping cloth over in his hand, feeling for fine stitchery or whatever it was Malfoys did with textiles. "We could switch off," he said. "This one's Malfoy, next one's Potter—"

"Next one?!" Harry yelped. "We're already talking about a next one?"

"I thought you wanted lots of children." That was true, but Harry thought they should start with one and see how it went. "If you have the same recovery period as a woman, we could start trying again within the year."

"You think I'm doing this _again_?"

Draco blinked at him in surprise. "Aren't you?"

"I'm a bloody barge!" Harry said. "My back hurts and there is an alien being inside of my body!"

"Hormones," Draco said.

"Ohhhh no," Harry said.

Draco looked at him perfectly innocently. "What?"

"You know, you like women, I don't understand how you can be so dismissive—"

"You're pregnant," Draco said, infuriatingly calm. "Obviously there are strange hormones in your body."

"Maybe that's why I'm feeling homicidal," Harry said. "Wait, no, that's just you."

Draco frowned down at the burping cloths in his hand. "I'm sorry," he said.

Harry blinked. "What?"

"I'm sorry," Draco said again. "I didn't mean to be dismissive."

"Oh," Harry said. "Um, thanks."

"You're welcome."

"We can monogram these later," Draco said. He dumped the cloths into the shopping basket.

"Right," Harry said. They walked further along to the plush animals and picked up a cuddly round black dragon. "So. How hard has Pansy been kicking your arse?"

"Hmm?" Draco said, far too innocently.

Harry grinned. He'd have to think of a suitable thank-you for her.

***

There was a low buzz working its way down the hallway. Clara got up to check and was nearly run over by Draco barrelling into the office.

"We caught one," he said, breathless.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"One of the people you flagged on the CCTV footage," Draco said. "Caught him. Wandering round inside a shop in Marylebone."

"Oh!" Harry stood up. "Is he—what's—"

"Interrogation," Draco said with relish. "Pansy's taking it."

"Excellent," Harry said. 

The interrogations took place somewhere in the basement of the Ministry. "Somewhere" was the most precise description Harry had ever come up with—that part of the building was an ever-shifting warren of dead ends, and anyone trying to find their way out without a special pass got trapped. And, possibly, died—Harry had never had a straight answer as to whether it was possible to find someone who'd been lost.

For the amusement (officially, "informational updates and assistance") of the other Aurors, however, there was a tiered viewing room near the meeting hall for the Wizengamot. A projection of the interrogation room appeared in the middle of the hall, with full augmented audio.

The man in the chair looked ordinary: ordinary hair, ordinary face, ordinary build. He wasn't familiar to Harry. He looked to be about Bill Weasley's age, so they probably hadn't overlapped at Hogwarts. The eyes, though, definitely not ordinary. Like Luna Lovegood, but preternaturally intense.

"Can I get you a glass of water, Frank?" Pansy asked.

Frank shook his head. "I won't be here very long," he said. "There's been a misunderstanding."

"I'm sure," Pansy said. "Are you a fan of teapots?"

"Teapots?" he said.

"Yes," she said. "We have pictures of you walking into several different housewares shops. We're trying to figure out why you would need to go into so many."

"Birthday present for my mum," Frank said. "She likes things with goldfish on them. I've been looking." He leaned forward slightly, obviously trying to convey sincerity.

"For seven months?" Pansy said.

He didn't settle back. "Only a few weeks," he said. "I don't know why you think I've been going for months."

"Photos," Pansy said pleasantly.

"Must be someone else." Frank folded his hands on the table. "Was there anything else?"

"You don't know anything about cursed teapots, then."

"Teapots? No."

"Or blankets?" Pansy said. "Chairs?"

"No," the man said. He was slightly red now, Harry noted.

Danielfield's head appeared at the edge of the projection and he waved Pansy over. "Excuse me," she said softly to Frank. He smiled and relaxed back into the chair whilst she had a quick conference with Danielfield. At the end of it, he handed her a glass of water, and she moved back to the table.

"Here," she said. "Have a drink."

"I'm not thirsty," he said.

"Drink it," she said, "or we will have a Healer administer it in an unpleasant fashion." She grinned.

This was going to be fun, Harry thought. 

"I'll," Frank swallowed, "I'll drink it."

Ginny came into the viewing room and sat down next to Harry. "They just found a curse on one of the blankets in the shop," she said quietly. "It's altered from the first version we saw, but it's similar. And they ran a Priori Incantatem on his wand and he cast it."

Harry nodded. "So they got approval for Veritaserum, then."

She grinned. "Yep."

"Let's try this again," Pansy said after Frank drank a few mouthfuls of water. "Been cursing teapots lately, Frank?"

"No," Frank said.

She frowned. "Blankets? Chairs?"

"Blankets," he said. 

"Somebody else doing the teapots, then?"

"Cassandra," he said. "She likes teapots. With their little spouts." He grinned.

"Did you come up with the spell, or was that Cassandra?"

"No, some of the others," Frank said. "I fixed it, though. It wasn't working properly."

"What wasn't?"

"The Transfiguration. It was supposed to jump witch to witch, but it didn't, and it had side effects so it always was cured. Now it works, though."

Pansy nodded. "And now you've been putting the new curse out there?"

"All of us have."

"Right. You've got a whole little group, then?"

"Yes." His grin faded into a beatific smile. "Lots of people care about them, you know."

"Care about who?"

"The garden gnomes," Frank said.

Pansy narrowed her eyes. "Garden gnomes?"

"Dying out," he said. His face fell into perfect sadness. "Too many people living in the city, too many people wanting them out of their gardens. They're just...fading away."

"How does cursing people help garden gnomes?"

"Transformation!" He was smiling again. His emotional control was off—one of the more annoying side effects of Veritaserum. 

"Into?" Pansy coaxed.

"Garden gnomes, of course."

"Of course," she echoed politely.

Frank leaned forward again, all seriousness. "We need more breeding females," he said. "And if we transform women into gnomes, then everyone around them cares too!"

"And there are many of you who believe this?" Pansy asked. Harry barely heard her; he felt like he'd been dunked in ice water.

Frank nodded.

"Can you give me their names?" Pansy said.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Draco said. Somebody shushed him from a nearby bench.

"Yes," Frank said. Pansy handed him a piece of parchment and a quill.

"Don't you see it?" Harry asked. "Wasn't the curse in the storeroom. It was the teapot. I touched it during the curse neutralisation party."

Draco's eyes widened.

"I'm pregnant because of a _fucking garden gnome cult_ ," Harry hissed.

Ginny stifled a giggle next to him. He ignored it. Draco didn't laugh, but his eyes were dancing a little. Dammit. It was pretty funny, after all.

"That's why we tell you not to touch the cursed objects," Ginny said.

"At least we know it isn't a garden gnome baby," Draco said. "Can you imagine?"

In the projection, Pansy said, "And this new curse. No side effects?" Frank shook his head.

"I can imagine the look on your father's face," Harry said.

Draco laughed out loud. Somebody shushed them again.

Pansy tapped the parchment. "Can you write down any locations your group cursed?"

"I don't know them, except for mine," he said. "You'd have to ask Cassandra, she organised everything."

"I'm going to get a big red cone-shaped hat for your sprog," Ginny said.

Harry and Draco both laughed so hard that Khan had to kick them out of the room.

***

"Ten quid we won't find anything," Clara said.

"I'm still not betting with you," Harry said.

"Boring!"

"Just think what you'll be like when you're my age," Harry said ruefully.

This was sort of fieldwork, Harry reflected as he cast revealing charm after revealing charm on the shelves in the store. No danger, but at least it wasn't in the office, and at least it involved doing magic. Since the garden gnome cult entered the stores like normal customers, they could search at night with no danger of confrontation, or Percy wouldn't have let him come at all. When Harry had walked out, wand in hand, Draco's face had been tight and white, but he hadn't said anything.

"Should we try the figurines, just in case?" Clara said from behind him.

"Can't hurt," Harry said. 

Clara was taking the front windows, just in case, and Harry was in the back near the till. Unlikely he'd find anything here, given the pattern, but he'd been strictly ordered not to be visible from the street. Nero and Rhonwen were in the other room and two trainee officers were stationed on the door—heaven forfend Harry be let out with an escort of only three full Aurors! He tried the next shelf, dishes with faintly peeping yellow chicks—still nothing. 

This would all be easier if they could find the mysterious Cassandra, but Percy wasn't willing to chance more contagious curses being let out into the wizarding population of London—or, worse, the Muggle population, as Frank hadn't known whether Muggles were susceptible. So, while a small task force looked for the cult members, the rest of the Aurors were working through the likely targets, hoping to get out ahead of any further curses.

Harry frowned at the shelves in front of him and cast another charm. No curse signature. It still felt good to do the magic, though: complicated enough to require concentration, say the right words, flick the wand just so, feel the power roll out of him.

"I'm coming back here if I ever need to buy a pepper grinder," Clara said. Harry grinned.

It took them half an hour to do the first store and then it was on to the second, part of the same chain where he'd been cursed in the storeroom. Like old times, he reflected. Was it really seven months ago? He headed to the back of the shop. "My old nemesis, the teapot," he said, facing an entire case full, and Clara laughed behind him. First shelf, no. Second shelf, no. Third shelf, no...

"That ten quid's still available," Clara said.

"Betting in Muggle money on the job," Rhonwen said. "Bad form, Abbott."

"I'll keep that in mind, Mummy," Clara said. A faint flash of pink light and she giggled—tickling charm, Harry guessed.

Tea towels, now. Did that count under the aegis of blankets? First shelf, no. Second shelf, no.

"Found something odd," Nero said.

Harry looked up. "What is it?"

"Odd."

Footsteps as Rhonwen and Clara walked over; Harry went to join them.

"It's this display," Nero said. He pointed at a line of decorative ceramic eggs, some carved, some painted, and indicated a golden one tucked in a back corner. "It's cold."

Harry squinted at it and reached out. Clara slapped his hand away.

"I'll touch it," Rhonwen said. She reached back and grabbed the egg, weighed it in her hand. "It's real," she said.

"That's—" Clara said.

"Frozen ashwinder egg," Harry said at the same time.

"Shit," Nero said. Then there was chaos as the door to the back of the shop banged open and curses hit Nero and the wall above Clara's head.

Harry dived behind the nearest shelf and shouted an "Expelliarmus!" at the door. Clara charged as Rhonwen climbed a stepstool for a better vantage point above a cabinet. Nero was on the ground, moaning, one arm flung out—Harry had a brief flash of Remus and Tonks in the Great Hall, hands stretched towards each other, and then little Teddy with Andromeda, and almost couldn't breathe with how stupid he'd been.

Another curse through the door. Didn't hit. Harry started with the warding spell around himself and Nero—he felt like a coward, but he couldn't risk it, he couldn't, and anyway Rhonwen and Clara had better agility than he had right now. Behind the door there was a muffled voice and a thud, but spells were still coming through, so they hadn't got them all. The ward spell finished, and Harry crawled over to Nero. "Name?" he said.

"Nero Smith, are you an idiot," he gasped.

"Where are you?"

A curse splashed against the ward and they both flinched. "In a shop in Knightsbridge, and it's the 18th of September," he said. "Mind's fine. It's a Shrinking Curse. Look at my leg."

Harry did—noticeably shorter, the shoe already fallen off. Nero groaned and twitched and the apparent length of his leg reduced by several inches. Harry whispered "Finite Incantatem," which would at least prevent the problem getting worse until they could get him to St Mungo's. Nero curled up and pressed his hands against his lower leg. "Thanks," he said breathlessly.

Rhonwen was still aiming curses at the door; Clara was tucked behind the counter now, popping up to cast spells and then falling back down for protection. Harry glanced at the outer door and couldn't see the trainee officers at all—no, there they were, hiding behind some bins and firing curses at a doorway across the street. Bloody hell. Harry pulled out his emergency beacon, whispered his location, and sent it off to headquarters.

"I guess we found the rest of the distribution ring," Nero said. He pulled himself slowly into a sitting position. Not too damaging, a Shrinking Curse, but it wasn't a far cry from the Cruciatus as far as pain went. 

Harry nodded, three-quarters of his attention on the fight still going on around them. He could Apparate them out, if he had to, but he wanted to be available for backup in a pinch and anyway Nero wouldn't be getting worse now. "Explains that first attack on Draco and me," he said, realizing it as he said it. "This cult wouldn't've been in the storeroom at all."

"Damn," Nero said. "Why didn't we—"

"Not everything makes perfect sense," Harry said grimly. "And it was a while ago."

Rhonwen went down hard.

Harry swore. She didn't get up. Across the room, Clara was still firing curses at the door; outside, the probationary officers were pinned down. "We've got to—" he said.

"Take it down," Nero said. With a grimace he held up his wand. "I'll cover."

"Wait—" Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak. Nero half-smiled at him. Harry draped the cloak over both of them, then spoke the words that released the ward.

Two curses in rapid succession hit nearby but, thankfully, neither of them found flesh. Harry and Nero moved carefully across the floor, slowed by Nero's leg, until they were behind the cabinet where Rhonwen was lying prone. Harry twitched the cloak over her body and started in on the new ward. He couldn't see anything of the fighting from here, so he'd have to hope nothing went wrong.

The problem with wards, apart from the not-moving and airtight parts, was the time it take to put them up. Even ten seconds could be too long when people were trying to kill you. Another sizzle from across the room, then running footsteps. God, he hoped—

"Petrificus Totalus," Nero said with deadly, steady calm. A man in black clothing fell to the ground, stiff as a board, just beyond the edge of the cabinet. Harry's heart dropped.

He finished the wards.

There was nothing to see, nothing to do but wait. He felt for Rhonwen's pulse and she had one, but she was knocked out cold, no way to tell what was wrong; he whispered "Finite Incantatem" just in case and wrapped his arms around his belly. Stupid. Stupid. Remus and Tonks—no.

To the side, he heard the door to the street bang open. More running footsteps and the bark of Khan's voice—thank fuck. Harry threw off the Invisibility Cloak, but he didn't drop the wards, even when Danielfield came around the corner, until he heard Khan call the all-clear.

"These two need St Mungo's," he said immediately.

"It can wait if you need me," Nero said.

Khan poked his head around the corner. "No. Go," he said.

"I'll take her," Danielfield said. Harry helped him lift a still-unconscious Rhonwen into his arms, and they Apparated away. Nero followed seconds later.

"Clara—" Harry began.

"Right here!" he heard from beyond the cabinet. "Choking Curse, barely hit me, all better now."

"As long as you go to St Mungo's later," Prewett said from the same general direction.

"Ashwinder eggs in the display," Harry said to Khan. "I think this is the rest of the distribution ring. When we found it we were ambushed from the storeroom."

Khan nodded. "We've got two down in the back, this guy"—he poked the Petrified man with his toe—"and another four in an empty storefront across the street." 

"Bigger than I thought," Harry said.

"Yeah." Khan laughed. "Maybe that's why we didn't find them."

More footsteps, and Draco skidded to a stop behind Khan. "You're—"

"Not hit," Harry confirmed. "Spent the entire firefight putting up wards and taking them down."

"Taking them _down_?" Draco said, voice rising to a squeak.

"Had to get to Rhonwen," Harry said. "I was covered."

"You—" Draco stared at him.

"I'm _fine_ ," Harry said again.

"I'll leave you two to it, then," Khan said with a slightly amused smile as he stepped away.

Draco walked up and threw his arms around Harry, and Harry buried his face in Draco's neck and breathed him in. "I didn't know," he said. "We thought it was safe."

"If you'd done this knowing it would be dangerous, I'd kill you myself," Draco said.

Harry nodded.

Draco ran his fingers through the messy hair on the back of Harry's head.

"I promise I'll stay in the Ministry until the baby's born," Harry said.

Beneath Harry's palms, Draco's shoulders shook, though he didn't laugh loudly enough that Harry could hear him, even pressed to his Adam's apple. "In the Auror headquarters," Draco said. "I don't trust the idiots in magical research."

"Good point," Harry said.

"Let's get you home. You can write a report in the morning."

Harry shook his head and stepped back. "They need you de-cursing," Harry said. "I can get myself home."

"Sod them," Draco said. "I'm an expectant father; I can see the other father of my child to safety." He tucked his arm around Harry's waist and walked them out of the shop, nodding at Khan as they went.

When they were safely out of earshot, Harry said, "I'm surprised it took you this long to use that excuse to get away from Shufflebottom."

Draco didn't admit to it, but after this many years, Harry could read his smirk loud and clear.


	6. Epilogue

If Harry wasn't so busy watching the baby sleeping on his chest, he'd be amused at the mix of adoration and horror on Draco's face.

"We made a _redhead_ ," Draco said. "How did we make a redhead?" He kept saying this, like it kept surprising him.

"Harry had the genes, obviously," Hermione said. "His mother had red hair, and you're blond, so the combination is entirely expected."

Ron was looking with great surmise at the baby, then at Hermione, then at the baby. Good. About time they thought about settling down, in Harry's opinion, although it was possible he wasn't objective.

"Have you settled on a name yet?" Pansy asked.

"No," Harry and Draco said together. Draco reached out and ran a finger down their baby's arm.

"I'll flip a coin for you."

"You might have to," Harry said. "But please do it before his parents get here."

"Agreed," she said. "How long do we have?"

"Another hour at least," Draco said. "I sent an owl. Not my fault they happened to go to the Riviera for the night."

"Still have spies at the manor?" she said. He smirked at her.

The door banged open and Ginny ran in. "I'm so sorry I'm late!" she said. "Couldn't get away till just now."

"That's okay," Harry said. 

"We're already over the number of visitors we're supposed to have," Draco said.

"I signed things for the mediwitches," Harry said. 

Draco smiled. "He was drugged," he said. "We won't hold it against him."

Ginny had made her way over to the bed and was leaning over, inches from the baby, eyes wide. "Wow," she said.

Harry smiled.

"Redhead," Ginny said. "Lucius Malfoy is going to shit a brick." Harry and Draco snorted in concert, then looked at each other in horror. "We always knew you were a member of the Weasley family, Harry."

"Thanks," Harry said.

"Don't say thanks yet, Mum is already knitting him a sweater."

"That's fine," Harry said. Draco rolled his eyes.

Ginny stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled something out. "As promised," she said, as the crumpled red lump unfolded into a tall red conical hat.

Harry grinned. "Thanks, Gin." He set it on the nightstand next to the flowers they'd already received.

"Also, these are just for you," she said, and handed him a box of earplugs and a DVD. 

Harry squinted at the cover. "Pinocchio?" he said. "This is for us?"

"Look at the subtitle."

"'It's not his nose that grows?' ...Oh." Laughing that much should have hurt, but organisational oddities aside, St Mungo's had wonderful painkilling potions. The confused look on Draco's face made him laugh harder. "I'll explain later," he said.

"It's porn!" Ginny said.

Draco's eyes widened. Pansy giggled.

"I'll just put this away," Harry said, sticking the case into a drawer in the bedside table.

All the shaking disturbed the baby, and he stirred and began to cry. Draco was up and out of the chair immediately, pulling out a ready-made formula bottle from the stash the nurses had left behind and casting a heating charm on it. Harry turned the baby into what he'd been assured was the proper position and Draco handed him the bottle. Already a team acting in concert—he knew they could do this, had known for a while, but it was a nice confirmation nonetheless. If their path here was a little unorthodox...that suited the two of them just fine. As far as Harry was concerned, he couldn't think of a happier ending.


End file.
